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How the Pennypackers Kept the Light 



* 



















































How the Pennypackers 
Kept the Light 


SOPHIE, SWETT 

Author of “Six Little Pennypackers,” “Littlest 
One of the Browns,” “The 
Lollipops’ Vacation,” etc. 



BOSTON 

DANA ESTES & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




Copyright , 1912 
By Dana Estes & Company 


All rights Reserved 


gCt.A3l9357 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I When the Little Pennypackers Came Home. 

Papa Pennypacker's Hands. Horatio Has a 
Secret 13 

II Jo and Pedy’s Housewarming. “ Better Look 

Out for Little Bear Light ! ” . . . .26 

III Dan Scatterby and the Bad Twin. The 

Darkness of Little Bear Light. Will Ho- 
ratio Get Across? 

IV A Sure-footed Boy. Poor Papa Pennypacker. 

Horatio Keeps Watch 

V Link Scatterby's Story. Dan Scatterby Looks 

Cross-eyed. Jane Treats with the Enemy 

VI Dan Scatterby and Jonas in the Woodshed. 


Horatio Has a Letter 72 

VII What Horatio Believes Phonse and He Can 

Do. A Puff of Smoke . . . . . . .81 

VIII A Steam Yacht in the Harbor. Only Phonny 

Bee Turned into Somebody Else ... 91 

IX Dan Scatterby Has an Adventure. The Scat- 
terbys Do Something that They are 
Ashamed of 100 

X Phonse and Horatio Plan to “ Take the Wind 
out of Link Scatterby’s Sails.” Can the 
Tutor be Trusted with the Light? . .111 

XI The Mermaid is off. Doxy's Opinion of Dan 
Scatterby. The Inspection Boat is on the 
Way 122 


37 

49 

62 


XII Dan Gets over to the Light. Jane Has House- 
keeping Troubles. Aprons and Mops . .132 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 


XIII Lida Scatterby to the Rescue. The Sticki- 

ness of the Tower. The Inspector Comes 142 

XIV Trying Times at the Light. Dan Doesn't 

Know What to Make of Himself. Will 

THE PENNYPACKERS KEEP THE LIGHT? . . .153 

XV Hunting for a Needle in a Haystack. Mind 
Your Manners. The Crow Helps all he 
Can 163 

XVI A Fresh-air Camp. The Mermaid Lends a 
Hand. Where Link Scatterby kept a Win- 
ter School 173 

XVII Phonse Trades with Cap'n Hardy's Own Coin. 

A Queer “Affidavit.” The Funniest Thing 
Phonse Ever Heard of 186 

XVIII The Inspector and the Crowd. Link Scat- 
terby Tells the Truth. A “ Great Gun ” 
to Help at the Lighthouse. Phonse Makes 
More Plans. Chris Speaks for Everyone 197 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ It was good to get on board the Polly Ann, 

their own little cat-boat.” Frontispiece 1 

PAGE 

“ There was nothing but darkness when Horatio looked 

out of the living room window.” 38^ 

“ There was quite a crowd in Mr. Tobias Clark’s 

store.” 63 ^ 

“ A fine new, steam yacht was steering straight for 

Hull Harbor.” 95^ 

“But you see, Phonse, the light has been out once, — just 

once, in all the time my father has kept it.” . . .118 

“ It was indeed Mr. Edward Picot who met the Inspector 

at the door.” 150^ 

“He told a lie — !” began Horatio, hotly. “He said 

he was outside the Harbor all night.” .... 180^ 

“ Horatio took Cap’n Solomon Hardy’s ‘ Affidavit ’ from 

his pocket.” 205^ 




f 


H ow the Pennypackers 
Kept the Light 

CHAPTER I 

WHEN THE LITTLE PENNYPACKERS CAME 
HOME. PAPA PENNYPACKER’s HANDS. 

HORATIO HAS A SECRET 

4 4 "]V TOW what do you suppose is going 
^ ^ on? ” exclaimed Jane Pennypacker, as 
the steamer 1 rounded the Point, so that Hull 
Harbor was in sight. They were coming home 
on the steamer — Horatio and Jane and Doxy 
Pennypacker, — from being shipwrecked and 
having one of the queerest times that anyone 
ever did have, and Hull Harbor looked as if 
there were a circus or a launching — some- 
thing very gay and delightful — going on 
there. 

It was late October, too, and there wasn’t 
a summer visitor left; sometimes it looked as 


12 How the Pennypackers 

if the summer visitors had all the good times 
to themselves and other people were only made 
to work — but the Harborites knew how to 
kick up their heels, I can tell you, after the 
summer people had all gone and they had stored 
away the fine lot of pennies they had earned 
by having them there ! 

There was a crowd on the steamboat land- 
ing and along the shore and it stretched up the 
road, away beyond Mr. Tobias Clark’s store! 

And, between the steamer’s shrill snorts as 
she made her way up to the landing, they heard 
a rat-atat-tat, a tum-ti-tum-tum and the joyous, 
martial strains of a cornet — the Hull Harbor 
band, or a part of it, anyway! 

Jo Bracey began to look sheepish! He be- 
gan to understand that it was a welcome home 
to him and his bride — who had been Pedy 
Ross, a little school-teacher whom everyone 
loved. They had gone off on their wedding 
trip on Jo’s vessel and got shipwrecked and 
carried off across the ocean; and this was Hull 


Kept the Light 


13 


Harbor’s way of showing how glad it was to 
welcome them home, all safe and sound. 

Their adventures had been so remarkable 
that Hull Harbor had read about them in the 
newspapers ! — just as some of you have read 
about them in the book called “ The Six Little 
Pennypackers ” — and it was felt to be a great 
thing to have had the newspapers report how 
brave they were — all the shipwrecked party. 
So it had been decided to show how Hull Har- 
bor felt about it! 

The boys and girls — who made up about 
half the crowd — wished especially to have 
Horatio and Jane and Doxy Pennypacker, who 
had all been in the shipwreck, know how they 
felt about it! It had been set down in black 
and white in a Boston paper, that Jane Penny- 
packer, aged twelve, had been especially brave ! 
And Jane had been the one who was afraid 
to go ! She said she had “ only been brave on 
account of Doxy.” You must set an example, 
you know. When Pedy walked down the 


14 How the Pennypackers 

gang plank to the Hull Harbor steamboat 
wharf Christopher, the tame crow that she car- 
ried in his cage, shrieked out: “ If ever I was 
glad to get home ! ” And the crowd laughed 
and cheered Christopher. 

Of course he must have heard someone say 
that and I think, myself, that it was Doxy, 
because Doxy lisped a little and Christopher 
said “ wath.” You never knew such a mimic 
as Christopher ! 

It must be owned that Pedy longed to get 
away even from the joyful reception of her 
old friends and neighbors to her own little 
house, on the Point, which had been built for 
Jo and her before they were married. And the 
little Pennypackers longed to get home to the 
lighthouse. They had always thought that 
the Little Bear Island lighthouse was the most 
delightful place in the world to live in and 
going across the ocean to London had not 
changed their minds. With the sun shining 
upon its white tower, that morning of their 


Kept the Light 


15 


home-coming and the blue waves tossing white 
caps upon the cliffs of Little Bear-well, you 
wouldn’t wonder that they loved the lighthouse. 

And if it is always a joy to see home when 
one has been long away, think how great a 
joy it must be when one has been shipwrecked 
and has known a time when one never really 
expected to see it again! 

Papa Pennypacker had come over to the 
landing in his little sailboat, the Polly Ann, 
and he was in his Sunday clothes. He said that 
as his children had had their names in the news- 
papers he couldn’t do any less than to dress 
up : — although Doxy always said he looked 
like somebody else and Little She cried and 
wouldn’t go near him. (Little She was the 
sixth of the little Pennypackers, who, being a 
baby, had not counted in their good times, but 
was now getting to the point where she meant 
to!) Papa Pennypacker kept wiping his eyes, 
just because they might have got lost in the 
wreck, and he hugged Doxy so hard that she 


1 6 How the Pennypackers 

felt great anxiety lest he should injure Pepina 
her French doll, that she had brought all the 
way in her arms. 

It was good to get on board the Polly Ann , 
their own little catboat ! They bade good- 
by — for a little while to Pedy and Jo who 
were going off to the Point on Cap’n ’Siah 
Thimble’s buckboard, with all their luggage, 
the Cap’n having come to meet his son Nick, 
who had been the mate of Jo’s shipwrecked 
vessel. The crowd had sung “ Home Again ” 
and Christopher, the crow, kept shrieking it, as 
the buckboard drove away. 

Levi Gott helped to get the Pennypackers’ 
luggage aboard the Polly Ann — (Levi had 
been a sailor aboard Jo’s vessel and he was 
going home to Goose Cove, as soon as he could 
get there). That was why Horatio did not 
observe, at once, how difficult it was for his 
father to use his hands. But he sprang sud- 
denly from the tiny cabin, where he had been 
stowing things away, to the stern. 


Kept the Light 


17 


“ Let me take the helm, Father! ” he cried. 
For the Polly Ann was not coming around as 
she should, and he saw that his father’s hands 
were knobby and swollen out of shape. 

“ The rheumatism again, and at this time of 
year? ” said Horatio. “ And you didn’t write 
about it ! I ought to have been at home ! ” 
Horatio’s very last thought when he thought 
he was going to be drowned was that his father 
would have no one to take care of the light, 
when he had rheumatism. 

“ I expect you came just about as quick as 
you could, didn’t you?” said Papa Penny- 
packer, half joking and half tender. His eyes 
rested proudly on his manly fourteen-year-old 
son, but sadly, too — he was afraid that with 
his rheumatism growing worse Horatio was 
not going to have half a chance ! 

All the little Pennypackers had come home a 
year older than they went away — and yet they 
had been away but a few weeks. Doxy was 
proposing that fact as a riddle for everyone 


1 8 How the Pennypackers 

to guess ! Horatio, who had been thirteen 
when they had sailed away in Jo’s vessel, was 
now fourteen, Jane, who had been eleven was 
now twelve and Doxy, who had been but seven 
was now eight. 

It had happened, rather oddly, that each one 
had had a birthday while they were gone — 
that was. all. Doxy thought it was very aston- 
ishing and she wondered how her twin brother, 
Jonas, at home, was standing it to be eight, 
without her ! They were known — alas ! — 
as the good twin and the bad one, and little 
Jonas was the bad one. 

Horatio was not thinking of his own chances 
but only that it had been a shame for him to be 
away when his father’s legs were so stiff that 
he had hard work to climb the lighthouse stairs 
and his hands so stiff that he could scarcely light 
the lighthouse lamp — that lamp upon which 
the safety of so many vessels depended! 

His mother was a small woman and very 
plump — it put her out of breath to climb the 


Kept the Light 19 

lighthouse stairs; and it was almost impossible 
for her to handle the great lamp. 

He ought not to have been away! said Hor- 
atio to himself. 

And he must get up early and go to bed late 
if he were going over to “ the main ” to school, 
with that lamp to take care of! — and they 
were not likely to have a teacher of their own; 
there seemed to be no one to have, now that 
Pedy was married. 

Jane was to go over to “ the main ” to 
school, also, and it was expected that she and 
Horatio would be able to teach the smaller 
ones — Doxy and Jonas and little Seth ; so you 
see that, besides all the good times they ex- 
pected, the young Pennypackers were going to 
have something to do. 

They had all come down over the cliff to 
the landing — Mama Pennypacker, Little She, 
standing on her own feet to show that she could 
do it — she had only just begun to when they 
went away — Jonas blowing the fog-horn as he 


20 How the Pennypackers 

always did when great things happened, and 
Seth, who was still five and felt it to be a queer 
injustice that he hadn’t “ come six,” since the 
others had got to be a year older. 

They all fell upon Jonas and kissed his 
smudgy face (he had had to be consoled with 
molasses candy for the long waiting) just as 
if he were good. 

Jonas had “ come eight,” although he had 
stayed at home ; — Seth had found, as we all 
do, that there are many puzzling things in life. 

“ Pedy Woss is going to have a house-warm- 
ing and I have got an inbite,” he said, in an 
effort to make things seem more even. 

And he thought of Little She who was being 
left out of something, just as he had been left 
out of being six — she had as yet no name ! It 
was because she was, as Jane said, so special; 
— that meant especially pretty and bright and 
sweet, so that there wasn’t a name in the whole 
round world that seemed good enough for her ! 
Perhaps you have known how it was, at your 


Kept the Light 


21 


house ! The more names they thought of and 
the more they argued about names the less 
possible it seemed to find one that was just 
right for Little She ; so Little She the baby re- 
mained and now she was almost two — and it 
was quite disgraceful ! So Doxy thought, and 
she meant that the first duty that she attended 
to should be the proper naming of Little 
She. 

It was Doxy who had really named Jo 
Bracey’s vessel, as you will remember who read 
about the launching, in the “ Six Little Penny- 
packers,” so it is not to be wondered at that 
she thought she was equal to it. In fact Doxy 
thought she was equal to a good deal; Horatio 
and Jane had privately owned to each other the 
fear that Doxy would grow up with “ the big 
head.” But “ the big head ” is likely to get 
cured in a large family, or at school ; — un- 
less one is a simpleton; and Jane and Horatio 
decided that Doxy could not really be that and 
be a Pennypacker! 


22 How the Pennypackers 

But before she found out that she didn’t 
know everything Doxy was going to have some 
pretty queer times! — You just wait and see 
if she wasn’t! 

Pedy Ross — who was Pedy Bracey, now, al- 
though it was hard to remember — had planned 
her house-warming on the way home and she 
was going to have it just as soon as possible, 
while it was warm and pleasant, because she 
wanted all the old people and all the babies to 
come, besides everybody in between. Because, 
also, everybody wished to come and hear all 
about the queer adventures they had had in 
being shipwrecked and carried off across the 
Atlantic. 

It was sure to be a delightful merry-making 
and the Pennypackers seemed to be thinking of 
scarcely anything else; but yet Horatio had 
what his mother called a hard knot between his 
brows and that meant that he had on his think- 
ing-cap and that it was pulled down pretty far ! 

He beckoned to Jane to follow him up the 


Kept the Light 


23 


tower stairs when he went to light the lamp, 
the night after their return. 

Jane went up the stairs, with her heart going 
thumpity-thump. 

Horatio never had any foolish, little mys- 
teries, as the others did. When he looked and 
behaved like that there was something the mat- 
ter! 

“ See here ! ” said Horatio. There was still 
daylight enough for Jane to see what was the 
matter. 

If you have ever been in one of Uncle Sam’s 
lighthouses you know how beautifully the lamp 
is kept; — the glass as clear as crystal, the 
metal polished so that it shines like the sun. 

And there had never been, on the whole At- 
lantic coast, a clearer, shinier lamp than the 
Little Bear! 

It was not so, now — it was really dingy ! 

Horatio lighted the lamp. The great light 
flashed out, but it could not fling its beams as 
far as it ought through that dingy glass ! 


24 


How the Pennypackers 


“I ought to have been at home! Father 
can’t, you know, with his hands in that condition ! 
And when the rheumatism is bad he doesn’t 
seem to see very clearly.” 

“ The light shows out beyond the rocks, any- 
way,” said Jane, after a moment. 

“ There couldn’t have been any ship- 
wreck.” 

“ But if the Inspection Boat had happened 
to come ’round ! ” said Horatio — and his 
voice shook. “ Father would have lost Little 
Bear lighthouse ! ” Lost the lighthouse ! 
Jane looked bewildered and then she gasped 
for breath. Where should they go, away from 
Little Bear? They had all been born there — 
every one. of the children. She thought they 
would be like a lot of little snails without their 
shells! — and heart-broken little snails, as well 
as at the mercy of the world! For there 
could never be another home like Little Bear 
Island. 

“ The thing is,” said Horatio, in a firm 


Kept the Light 25 

voice, “ that until Father is well we must keep 
the light! ” 

“ Why, of course we can keep it, just as easy 
as not! ” said Jane; — and the rosy color that 
meant joyful courage rushed back to her cheeks. 

Not yet, if Horatio and she could help it, 
were the little Pennypackers to be like snails 
without their shells! 

“It may not be quite so easy!” said Ho- 
ratio, shaking his head. “ That is — ” he 
added hastily, for he didn’t like to see Jane’s 
face grow long — “ it may not be all fun ! ” 

He knew something about it that he wasn’t 
going to tell Jane — at least, not yet. 


CHAPTER II 


JO AND PEDY'S HOUSE-WARMING. “ BETTER 
LOOKOUT FOR LITTLE BEAR LIGHT 1 ” 

44 T DON’T think I’d better go,” said Ho- 
ratio. They were all setting out for Jo 
and Pedy Bracey’s house-warming — every one 
of the Pennypackers even down to Little She — 
excepting Papa Pennypacker, who must take 
care of the light. 

They all turned and stared at Horatio — 
and there he was in his everyday clothes! 
Mama Pennypacker and Jane had had so 
much to do to get themselves and the little ones 
ready that they had not thought of Horatio, 
who was the kind of boy that knows where his 
Sunday collars are and even which neck-tie to 
wear. 

“ I mean, of course, that I’ll row you over 

and come after you; but Father is so lame, to- 
26 


Kept the Light 27 

day, that I think that I’d better see to the 
light.” 

They were going by the middle of the after- 
noon, for that was “ when the party began,” as 
/ Doxy said, but they wouldn’t be likely to come 
home until pretty far into the night, for a 
rousing good time like that was so rare at Hull 
Harbor that people wouldn’t easily let go 
of it. 

Mama Pennypacker’s eyes grew a little 
troubled as she looked at Horatio — nobody 
liked a good time better than Horatio. 

“ I don’t think there’s a mite of need of 
your staying at home,” she said. “ Your 
father wouldn’t like it and he wouldn’t let you 
touch the lamp; you know that! And he al- 
ways has been able.” 

“ It was as much as ever, last night,” mur- 
mured Horatio. But he didn’t say it aloud. 
(It had always come easy to Horatio not to 
tell too much; Jane, now, would make up her 
mind not to tell and out it would come!) 


28 


How the Pennypackers 


“ Your father wouldn’t like it,” repeated 
Mama Pennypacker; and that settled it, to her 
mind. She had been staying there and seeing 
Papa Pennypacker every day and she was not 
conscious of some changes in him which Ho- 
ratio saw. 

“ You should have got dressed,” she added, 
somewhat severely, for her. 

Mama Pennypacker didn’t believe in dwell- 
ing upon every little worry, and she feared that 
Horatio was going to have an anxious mind. 

“ Never mind your everyday clothes,” said 
Jane, smoothing out the creases in her pink 
sash. “ You are only a boy.” 

Jane still believed that it would be just as 
easy as not to keep Little Bear Light. Ho- 
ratio and she had cleaned the lamp — not very 
thoroughly because it had annoyed their father 
to have them do it; he had told them sharply 
to keep away from the lamp. But Horatio 
was sure that the time was coming when he 
would be glad to have them do it. 


Kept the Light 29 

From the Point where Jo lived the light- 
house tower was plainly in sight. 

Horatio decided that he would stay at the 
house-warming until dark — and keep watch 
of the lighthouse. 

As for his common clothes — he would have 
all the more fun in them ; only girls noticed such 
things and Horatio didn’t think much of girls — 
except Rosemary Bruce, his friend Phonse’s sis- 
ter, who had almost as much sense as a boy, 
and Lida Scatterby, who was great in Arith- 
metic. Lida had tight, red, bobbing curls over 
her head; the boys and girls made fun of her 
kinky hair but there were no kinks in her brains 
— Horatio would have told you that! 

It was a bother just now, that he liked Lida 
Scatterby, for it was her father, Cap’n Hiram 
Scatterby, who was likely to make them trouble 
about the lighthouse; — that was the thing that 
he had not told Jane. 

Jo Bracey had told Horatio — Jo, who knew 
how to be a friend and watched the sea that 


30 How the Pennypackers 

was likely to swamp another fellow’s boat, just 
as if it were going to swamp his own. And Jo 
knew what it would be to the Pennypackers to 
lose the lighthouse. 

Cap’n Scatterby wanted more than his share 
— or, rather, he thought that all that he could 
get was his share. 

He probably had not begun by playing fair, 
when he was a boy. Anyway, he didn’t play 
fair, now. When he saw Uncle Sam paying 
anybody a salary for keeping a lighthouse — 
why, he wished to keep the lighthouse and get 
the salary himself! 

And when Papa Pennypacker became ill with 
rheumatism he said to himself, just like an old 
fox, “Now is my chance!” For Uncle Sam 
is very particular to have only able-bodied men 
to keep his lighthouses. 

Now Horatio would have felt just as anx- 
ious to keep the light always steady and bright, 
a beacon to show vessels the way into the har- 
bor and keep them off the cruel rocks that 


Kept the Light 


3i 


would grind their bones, if there had been no 
sly fox of a Cap’n Scatterby trying to get the 
lighthouse away from them; but he was more 
determined that everything should be ship- 
shape and speckless, so that no one might say 
“ Seth Pennypacker isn’t fit to keep the light! ” 

They were fit to keep it — all the Penny- 
packers, together — and Papa Pennypacker’s 
rheumatism never lasted a great while; but, 
you see why it was that Horatio meant to keep 
the lighthouse tower in sight, even if it pre- 
vented him from having any good time at all 
at the house-warming. 

It was a pretty good pull over to the point, 
that afternoon, for there was a choppy sea and 
so many plump Pennypackers made a heavy 
load; but Horatio’s muscles were used to oars 
and he said it was good to get hold of them 
again after being away where everything went 
by steam or electricity; — you felt bigger, 
somehow, to find out that you could still make 
something go, all by yourself! 


32 How the Pennypackers 

The afternoon part of the house-warming 
was chiefly for the boys and girls who had been 
Pedy’s scholars and they were there in full 
force and ready to make the most of the good 
time. They all looked at Horatio and Jane 
and Doxy Pennypacker as if they were curiosi- 
ties, since they had been to London, and Lida 
Scatterby, who had once spent a week in Boston 
and gone to the top of Bunker Hill Monument, 
knew that she would never be asked to tell 
about that again ! 

Christopher, the crow, was excited by the 
sight of so many people, but he showed it chiefly 
by standing on one foot and making queer 
noises in his throat; Pedy said that he had 
seemed stupid and queer since they had been at 
home and had only muttered sleepily his old 
sayings that he had “ had a very wet time” and 
“ been through a lot.” Sometimes she was 
afraid he would never say anything new! 

The living-room of the cottage was made to 
look like a ship’s cabin — Pedy said she wanted 


33 


Kept the Light 

to feel as if she had gone away with Jo even 
when she hadn’t; and it was so exactly like a 
ship’s cabin that if you were inclined to be sea- 
sick you would think you felt the motion of the 
boat when you went into it! 

Christopher’s cage hung there and Jo said 
he thought the crow was so queer because he 
thought himself still at sea; but moving him 
into the kitchen made no difference. Christo- 
pher seemed to be the only one of the party 
who couldn’t get over being shipwrecked! 

Jane was quite mortified that Horatio was 
in his everyday clothes, when there wasn’t 
another boy or girl who wasn’t dressed up; and 
Lida Scatterby kept on her work apron, that 
she had brought to help at the table in, just to 
keep him in countenance! (She needn’t have 
troubled — Horatio didn’t even know it ! — 
but she knew that it would have made another 
girl feel better.) 

Doxy Pennypacker had brought — carefully, 
in a box — her walking and talking doll, Pe- 


34 How the Pennypackers 

pina, which had come from Paris. Now there 
had been several dolls in Hull Harbor, first 
and last, that had “ truly ” hair and could open 
and shut their eyes most naturally and in a way 
to make one’s heart thrill; but a doll that could 
walk about, with a swish of her silken skirts 
and say “ Papa ” and “ Mama ” plainly, in a 
sweet little voice — why that was another 
thing altogether! 

It was a thing to interest older people than 
Doxy Pennypacker, the doll’s owner and 
“kids” like that. (I am quoting Dan Scat- 
terby, aged thirteen; — Horatio had never 
liked Dan Scatterby as well as he did his sister 
Lida.) 

When Pepina had walked and talked to 
everybody’s satisfaction Doxy put her carefully 
away in the box again — for a doll of such at- 
tainments could not be expected to be hugged 
and carried by one arm and even sat upon, like 
poor, dear, patient Angelica Marie, now high 
upon the clock-shelf, at the lighthouse, out of 


Kept the Light 


35 


reach of Little She, but alas! upside down. 

And when she had put Pepina into the box 
Doxy slipped the box under the lounge, where 
it would be safe until she was ready to go home. 

And Dan Scatterby, with small, gray, gimlet- 
like eyes watched her doing it, while he pre- 
tended to be looking another way. 

Dan was the kind of a boy that likes to find 
out what makes things go : — it is not a bad 
kind of boy if he only confines his curiosity to 
his own things. But what Dan meant, to-day, 
was to find out what made that doll walk and 
from what part of her the “ Papa ” and 
“ Mama ” came out ! 

By this time the table was being laid for sup- 
per and almost everyone was helping, even 
the boys, although a few were still playing 
games in the living-room. 

Dan Scatterby had his eye on Jonas — 
known, alas! as the bad twin. 

“ Jonas is the man for my money,” said Dan 
to himself. 


36 How the Pennypackers 

And he beckoned to Jonas, with a glittering 
penny held enticingly in his hand. 

Now it happened that Horatio, who was just 
at that moment helping Lida Scatterby with 
the sardine sandwiches, saw Dan out of the 
corner of his eye and said to himself “ that boy 
is up to mischief ! ” He turned to see to whom 
Dan was beckoning. 

But just at that instant the crow set up a 
cry in his old shrill, startling tones: 

“ They’d better look out for Little Bear 
light!” 


CHAPTER III 


DAN SCATTERBY AND THE BAD TWIN. THE 
DARKNESS OF LITTLE BEAR LIGHT. 

WILL HORATIO GET ACROSS? 

H ORATIO set the can of sardines that he 
was opening down upon the table, pretty 
hastily! He tore off the apron that Lida Scat- 
terby had tied around his neck — and rushed 
into the living-room. The crow seemed to have 
aroused from his stupid condition and repeated 
excitedly that they “ would better look out for 
Little Bear light! ” 

It had grown dark but Horatio, reassured 
by his mother, and excited by the merry-mak- 
ing, had forgotten his fear lest his father’s 
rheumatic legs should refuse to climb the tower 
stairs, or his stiff fingers be unable to light the 
lamp ! 

No one but him had seen how great was the 
37 


38 How the Pennypackers 

effort his father was obliged to make, no one 
else understood how soon he might not be able 
to do it at all! And he, just because he was 
having a good time, had let himself forget! 

Of course a boy is used to depending upon 
his father; — but he knows that he must draw 
upon all the stuff in him that is going to make 
a man when something happens so that he 
cannot. 

It was a dark night — pitchy dark; there was 
nothing but darkness when Horatio looked out 
of the living-room window — not a ray of light 
from the lighthouse tower! 

Horatio said to himself that he had known 
it would be so before he looked out! And it 
was the time of year when a great many fishing 
vessels and coasters were likely to put into the 
Harbor. 

I am glad to be able to say that it was the 
danger to those vessels that filled Horatio’s 
mind, rather than the thought of what the neg- 
lect would mean to themselves. 



There was nothing but darkness when Horatio looked out 
of the living room window. 








Kept the Light 39 

He ran out of the house without a word to 
anyone. He wished that no one might dis- 
cover that the lamp was not lighted; but of 
course that was past hoping for, with that crow 
screaming out his advice! 

Queer that he should have taken it into his 
rusty, stupid old poll, just at this time ! 

He had undoubtedly heard some of the 
neighbors say, at the cottage, that Seth Penny- 
packer was in danger of losing the lighthouse ! 
It was likely, too, that he had heard it said 
more than once — although you never could 
be sure what Christopher would pick up ! 
Pedy said she believed he was a worse tell-tale 
than any parrot that ever lived! 

Horatio got into his boat, at the end of Jo’s 
slip ; no one but a boy could have found his way 
to the end of the slip, it was so dark. There 
was a lantern tucked away under the stern seat, 
and he had matches in his pocket. 

By the lantern’s light he could see his com- 
pass. As short a distance as it was and as 


40 How the Pennypackers 

familiar as he was with the place he could by 
no means have found his way without the com- 
pass. As it was it was not the easiest of things 
to steer a direct course for Little Bear Island, 
in a sea that had grown heavier since darkness 
fell. 

It is as natural to keep rowing around and 
around, on the sea, as hunters say that it is to 
keep walking in the same manner in the woods. 

He could not keep his lantern burning be- 
cause the glass did not cover it tightly and the 
high wind made it flare dangerously; so he had 
to stop rowing, every little while, to light it and 
look at his compass. 

In that way his progress was very slow; in- 
deed, he began to fear that he was not going 
ahead, at all, when, suddenly, the keen, high 
notes of a violin struck upon his ear! 

It was after supper at the cottage and Jo 
was tuning his fiddle and he was still near 
enough to hear it! And darkness all around 
him, like a wall, with not a sign of the 


Kept the Light 


4i 


•flash from the tower for which he hoped. 

He bent to his oars again with a will, but he 
knew that if he should come again within hear- 
ing of Jo’s fiddle he must row ashore — if he 
could find the way ! — and get help to row to 
the lighthouse. 

And that would be, he felt, giving Dan Scat- 
terby the right to say that the Pennypackers 
were not fit to keep the light! 

There was even a “ recommendation ” in the 
lighthouse book of instructions that no one per- 
son should ever be left alone to the care of 
the light; but no one had ever thought of it as 
meaning much. Did not Aaron Prim often 
stay alone at Schooner Cliff light? — and Enoch 
Tripp at Great Plum? But Horatio wished 
— oh, how bitterly he wished that he had re- 
membered to go home before dark! 

Lida Scatterby and the sardine sandwiches 
seemed like a nightmare! 

Dan Scatterby had been trying to beguile 
Jonas with a penny; Dan was “up to some- 


42 How the Pennypackers 

thing,” thought Horatio, as he rowed on and 
on. 

Meanwhile there was a great deal of fun 
going on at the house-warming. Jo and a few 
others who had seen that the lighthouse lamp 
was not lighted had looked at each other and 
shaken their heads gravely; but they had kept 
quiet. They were friends to the Penny- 
packers and felt that it was wise to keep it a 
secret, as far as possible, that the lighthouse 
was dark. 

Could Horatio get across? one whispered 
doubtfully. 

“Trust that boy! ” Jo answered cheerfully. 
It really did not seem a great undertaking to 
get across from the point to the lighthouse and 
Jo kept peering slyly out, expecting at any 
moment to see the light flash out. And he took 
great pains to keep things lively so that those 
who had not found out that the tower was dark 
should not do so. 

Mama Pennypacker knew it, of course; she 


Kept the Light 43 

had looked out after Horatio when he ran off. 
But she did not speak of it even to one of her 
own brood. She was frightened but she tried 
to think that nothing serious had happened. 
Mama Pennypacker was, in fact, of an easy 
mind; she meant to do her best and never 
worry about what she couldn’t help; — 
which was, perhaps, the reason she was so 
plump and all the young Pennypackers were so 
happy. 

She couldn’t help wishing that she had let 
Horatio go directly home, as he wished to — 
but he would get there pretty soon, now, any 
way! 

Still, I do think that if Mama Pennypacker 
had not had this darkness of the lighthouse 
lamp upon her mind she would have observed 
the absence of Jonas from the supper, for Jonas 
had a wholesome regard for the pleasures of 
the table and liked to find himself in the neigh- 
borhood of Pedy’s cream-cakes. She said, 
afterwards, that she thought she must have had 


44 How the Pennypackers 

an impression that the small ones were coming 
to the table afterwards — for there were sev- 
eral absent, in company with Jonas. 

But the Thimble twins were afterwards 
found in the pantry, alone with the jam and 
sticky. And little Nick Goddard had gone to 
sleep on the lounge. 

There was really no one absent with Jonas, 
except Dan Scatterby. 

Now Doxy, being the good twin, had a care 
over Jonas and was very apt to have her eye 
upon him, in society, where his badness might 
so easily be a disgrace to the whole Penny- 
packer family. But alas! Doxy’s weakness 
for jam tarts had made her forget Jonas and 
his failings. 

When Mama Pennypacker said, in a low 
tone, and only in the hearing of her own brood, 
Where is Jonas? it was Doxy who promptly 
slipped down from her seat at the table. 

No thought of jam tarts, any more! A 
dreadful fear had gripped Doxy’s small mind 


Kept the Light 45 

— the mind that was so well acquainted with 
Jonas ! 

She went straight into the living-room, and 
felt under the lounge, where she had concealed 
the too greatly admired Pepina, in her box. 

Empty space, as far as she could feel ! 

She lay down and rolled her plump person as 
far under as she could, and felt of every inch 
of space, while her heart went thumpity-thump, 
and a horrid, great lump was beginning to come 
in her throat. 

No box, at all ! — no Pepina ! 

Now Doxy might have thought that per- 
haps her mother had taken the box from under 
the lounge and put it away for safe keeping, 
but you are very apt to know just what to ex- 
pect of your own family — Doxy thought of 
Jonas ! 

She had come there just as soon as she knew 
that Jonas was missing and she had no thought 
except of Jonas when she found that Pepina 


was gone. 


46 How the Pennypackers 

She kept down the horrid lump — she had 
resolved that she would deserve to be eight, if 
Jonas didn’t — she went silently through the 
dining-room, where the guests were just get- 
ting up from the tables, and then through the 
kitchen into the woodshed. 

Jonas was there and Dan Scatterby was with 
him. They had some knives and a gimlet and 
a hammer on Jo’s work-bench — and the doll- 
box, empty. 

Dan Scatterby was hiding something behind 
him ! 

“ Oh, give me Pepina ! Give me my doll ! ” 
cried Doxy, with a great burst of tears, and she 
ran around behind Dan and tried to snatch 
the doll ! 

Dan held it above his head — its beautiful 
Paris gown half torn off, its golden locks all 
tousled ! 

“ She’s just as good as ever, only we haven’t 
had time to put back her walk and her talk! ” 
said Dan. 


Kept the Light 47 

Doxy’s temper had given way — she was the 
good twin but she couldn’t bear everything! 

“ Shut up ! — everybody will hear you ! n 
cried Dan Scatterby roughly. “ Now you bet- 
ter just listen to me, you little spit-fire — if 
you make a fuss about this or tell anybody that 
I did it, why, my father will get the lighthouse 
away from your father ! — and you won’t have 
anywhere to live ! He can, just as easy! He’s 
got friends in Washington and he’ll go on to 
see them and get appointed keeper of the light ! 
So now you’d better keep still I ” 

“ Children! ” — it was Pedy’s voice calling: 
“Jonas hasn’t had anything to eat — or Dan 
Scatterby, either! What are you doing here, 
Doxy, dear? ” 

Doxy had thrust her mutilated darling into 
the box; she tucked the box under her arm, and 
looked up, bravely trying to smile into Pedy’s 
face. 

“ I came to find Jonas,” she said. 

Pedy looked curiously at the red and tear- 


48 How the Pennypackers 

wet little face. But Doxy often had trouble 
with Jonas — and she had no time for chil- 
dren’s small difficulties, just then. There was 
still no ray of light from the lighthouse. Peo- 
ple who were obliged to go home in boats 
didn’t know how they were going to get there ! 
Everyone was talking about the darkness of 
Little Bear Light I 


CHAPTER IV 


A SURE-FOOTED BOY. POOR PAPA PENNY- 
PACKER. HORATIO KEEPS WATCH 

TT was growing late; everyone who lived on 
“ the main ” had gone home — including 
Dan Scatterby, who had found a chance, before 
he went, to whisper, “ now you’d better re- 
member,” fiercely, into Doxy’s shrinking ear. 

Mama Pennypacker stood gazing out at the 
window — where there was nothing to see but 
the blackness of the night — her face as woeful 
as so plump and cheerful a face could well be. 
Little She was asleep in her arms and Doxy, the 
box under her arm, was clinging to her dress. 
(It was not a habit of Doxy’s to cling to her 
mother’s dress, but there are times when one 
must have such a comfort — even when one has 
“ come eight! ”) 

Pedy had it on her very tongue’s end to say: 


49 


50 How the Pennypackers 

“ You’d better make up your mind to stay all 
night ” — for even Jo, good sailor as he was, 
hesitated to undertake to row a boatload of a 
woman and children over to Little Bear, in 
such darkness as that — when — oh, joy! 
— an arrow of light pierced the darkness, then 
a whole quiver — full of arrows of light, and 
after that a great flash that made the darkness 
fairly curl up and creep away! — somebody had 
lighted Little Bear lighthouse lamp ! 

Jo’s big rowboat was at his slip and they all 
piled into it, and Jo rowed with a will. He 
said that he didn’t calculate that the light was 
missing more than an hour or two after dark 
(oh, Jo!) and he didn’t expect anybody had 
missed it. 

He said that because Mama Pennypacker, 
usually as gay as a lark, was so silent and 
seemed so anxious. 

Doxy clutched her box, wide-eyed; one could 
not, must not be sleepy, with such an awful 
secret to keep. She looked at Little She, 


Kept the Light 


5i 


asleep in her mother’s arms and thought how 
happy were such very young people who knew 
nothing of secrets ! 

Jonas — almost always captured by the Sand- 
man, the very first one, moved from one seat 
to another — a thing not allowed in Jo’s row- 
boat — to wedge himself in beside Doxy. 

“ I’m orfle sorry! ” he whispered in her ear. 

But Doxy, the tender-hearted, who was ac- 
customed to put her arms around him at the 
first sign of penitence, did not even turn her 
face towards him. 

“You’d better be!” she said, in a sharp, 
hard little voice. 

Jonas shrank back, astonished. She might 
even be going to tell ! 

But she was not; life had changed for her, 
in the last few hours, but it had not changed 
her enough to make her even think of telling of 
Jonas; trials of life in the shape of spankings 
often came Jonas’ way — it was not for her to 
add to them ! 


52 How the Pennypackers 

And Dan Scatterby she could not tell of, al- 
though she would have been quite willing to 
have him dealt with after the fashion of Jonas; 
a strangely dreadful misfortune would befall 
them all, if she did! They would be Penny- 
packers without the lighthouse ! Pennypackers 
who didn’t belong anywhere, if one could think 
of such a thing ! 

She didn’t think of snails without their shells, 
as Jane and Horatio had done, but she was 
even more upset by the idea than they had 
been. 

Dan Scatterby had made it quite sure that 
she would not tell! 

“ Perhaps her walk and talk will come 
back! ” whispered Jonas, hopefully. (Jonas 
was always strongly hopeful of the results of 
his worst pieces of mischief.) 

But Doxy was uncommonly hard to soften; 
she moved as far as possible away from 
him. 

“ Pm ’fraid Scatterbys are a bad lot! ” re- 


Kept the Light 


S3 


marked Jonas. (Like Christopher, his 
speeches were often second-hand.) He had 
been thinking that if the mischief really was 
hopeless it was time to remind Doxy that he 
had not done it! 

Doxy turned to him at once. 

“ Do — do you think Cap’n Scatterby is very 
bad?” she whispered. 

Jonas nodded darkly. 

Cap’n Scatterby began to seem to Doxy like 
the ogre in her fairy-book, who cut off the 
king’s head and set up housekeeping in his 
palace. 

Later, she would sob herself to sleep over 
her mangled doll, but as yet she could only 
think of Dan Scatterby’s threat. 

Horatio had rowed on and on, often stopping 
to light his lantern and look at his compass, 
finding out sometimes that he was quite out of 
his course. 

As long as he lives he will remember how 
like a nightmare that long, long trip seemed — 


54 How the Pennypackers 

only just across from the Point to Little Bear 
Island ! 

His boat grazed one of the great rocks, on 
the side of the island that was far from the 
landing: — -that was the first he knew that he 
had really got there! 

He tied the boat to a projection of the rock 
and scrambled up the steep side; it took a sure- 
footed boy to do it and a resolute one, at that! 

He called “ Father! ” as he lighted a lamp 
in the kitchen; a feeble call, mingled with a 
groan answered him; it came from the tower 
stairs and there he found his father, caught 
by so sharp a grip of pain in the back that he 
could not put one foot before the other! 

“ It seems to me I’ve been here a week, and 
I know there’s been time enough for half the 
shipping in the Bay to be stove up on the 
rocks ! ” he groaned, as Horatio rushed up the 
stairs, past him. 

He heaved a long, long sigh of relief as the 
light flashed out, under Horatio’s hand. 


Kept the Light 


55 


“ I ought not to have stayed, Father! ” said 
Horatio, as he came downstairs. “ That’s the 
last time I’ll go, until you get all over the rheu- 
matism ! ” 

He helped his father down the stairs; 
it was not impossible, on account of pain, 
for Papa Pennypacker to go down as it 
had been for him to go up, but still he 
was a burden that taxed all Horatio’s boy- 
strength. 

When the other Pennypackers came troop- 
ing in — Jo with them to find out what was the 
matter — Papa Pennypacker was in bed, com- 
fortable, and as cheery as if his old enemy 
rheumatism had not beaten him outright, on 
the tower stairs. 

“ Tisn’t as if I hadn’t a good, strong boy 
of my own to depend upon — ” he said to Jo; 
and Jo, who was a big, brawny six-footer 
looked a little doubtfully at Horatio. Four- 
teen seemed young to him — you know there 
is everything in the way you look at the matter ! 


56 How the Pennypackers 

— and Horatio was growing tall so fast he 
had no time to grow broad. 

“ He’s good and strong inside, anyhow ! ” 
said Jo heartily. And he knew Horatio as you 
only know people after you have seen them 
have a chance to show whether there is good 
stuff in them or not. 

4 

“ I’ve got a girl, too, that could clean the 
lamp and light it, at a pinch ! ” 

(Jane colored high with pleasure, at this 
praise; as was natural, they thought it was one 
of the great things of life to take care of the 
lamp; and, considering all that depended upon 
it, I don’t know but they were right.) But in 
spite of his cheerful courage Papa Pennypacker 
was looking wistfully at Jo, as if to find out 
just what he thought. He was conscientious, 
was Papa Pennypacker, and not for worlds 
would he have kept the lighthouse to prevent 
loss and trouble to himself if it would have 
brought danger upon the ships. 

Jo understood; he read in his face what he 


Kept the Light 


57 


had suffered on the tower stairs the night be- 
fore. Horatio.knew it too, and could not for- 
give himself for being away — but he knew 
that the only thing to do, now, was to make up 
for it the best way he could ! That lamp would 
never remain unlighted again because Horatio 
Pennypacker was not on hand! There might 
be other times in life when he would remember 
that darkness of the Little Bear light and be 
sure nothing happened that Horatio Penny- 
packer was to blame for! 

“ We always said, you know, that it wasn’t 
one Pennypacker but the whole of us that kept 
the light! ” continued Papa Pennypacker, still 
with his eyes on Jo’s face. 

“ Who says that the six little Pennypackers 
couldn’t keep the light, all by themselves?” 
said Jo gayly; but he looked serious; when he 
felt so it would always show in his blue eyes — 
which usually held a twinkle. 

“ The Grace Clark went off fishing, yester- 
day, off Peguin Rock — she wouldn’t be coming 


58 


How the Pennypackers 


back; and the Twin Brothers went off to Phila- 
delphia, Monday.” Papa Pennypacker told off 
the vessels, absent from Hull Harbor, on his 
worn and knobby fingers. “ Link Scatterby 
took a load of stone from the quarry up to Bos- 
ton about a week ago, but he wouldn’t be 
loaded to come back by this time — ” 

“ It isn’t likely he would,” said Jo, positively. 
“ Link doesn’t hurry himself when he gets up 
to Boston.” 

Papa Pennypacker’s face brightened at this 
assurance of Jo’s, and Jane, who was in the 
habit of looking at Horatio, to see what he 
thought of such things, saw the knot untie in 
his forehead. 

Link Scatterby was Cap’n Scatterby’s 
brother; if his vessel should have been coming 
into the Harbor when Little Bear light was 
dark he would be a very bad witness against 
the Pennypackers! 

Horatio went hastily back to the tower-room ; 
— there must always be a watch there, after 


59 


Kept the Light 

the lamp was lighted : — it was so set down on 
the printed regulations that the Inspector had 
hung up at the foot of the tower stairs. 

He peered out into the darkness, as far as 
the dazzling light shed its rays. There was 
no sign of any shipping. He could hear the 
surf pounding on Gridiron Ledge; some birds 
dashed themselves against the glass of the 
tower, as they do in furious winds and storms. 

“ It’s going to blow and there’ll be a heavy 
sea,” said Horatio to himself. 

He had been obliged to bind up his hands 
before he dared touch the lamp; they were torn 
and bleeding from his struggling climb up the 
rocks ; — but who would mind a little thing like 
that, now that the lamp was lighted? 

Jo came hurriedly up the tower stairs. 

“ You go to bed and let me take the first 
watch,” he said. 

The watches must be only four hours long — 
according to Uncle Sam’s regulations — but 
Papa Pennypacker, having no assistant, had 


60 How the Pennypackers 

been in the habit of keeping the watch himself, 
the whole night through — with the Inspector’s 
full knowledge and consent. 

Horatio had meant to keep the whole watch, 
to-night. 

He said, hesitatingly, to Jo that Pedy would 
be worried. 

Did he think that Pedy was a fresh-water 
girl? Jo asked scornfully. He rather thought 
that Pedy knew how to be a sailor’s wife ! 

Horatio yielded; — there comes a time to 
everyone when he needs a good friend! 

If there should be a complaint of the dark- 
ness of Little Bear light it would be well to be 
able to prove that there was someone else there, 
for the rest of the night, besides a boy! 

So Jo sat in the tower room and Horatio set 
his alarm for two o’clock and went to bed and 
to sleep; Doxy slept with poor Pepina’s drag- 
gled head tucked under her chin — for, in the 
excitement no one had thought to tell her that 


Kept the Light 


61 


she must put the doll away in the parlor cup- 
board — and the great, unwinking eye of the 
light showed the way to all ships safely past 
the rocks, into Hull Harbor. 


CHAPTER V 


LINK SCATTERBY'S STORY. DAN SCATTERBY 
LOOKS CROSS-EYED. JANE TREATS 
WITH THE ENEMY 

L INK SCATTERBY’S schooner, the Pent - 
etic, came into the Harbor in the middle 
of the next forenoon, with a fair wind. The 
last night’s gale seemed to have gone off to sea, 
carrying with it a heavy fog bank, that had 
lurked about the horizon. 

But Link Scatterby had a doleful tale to tell ! 
He had tried to make the Harbor in pitchy 
darkness, the schooner had barely missed bor- 
ing a hole in her side off Gridiron rocks, and 
finally he was forced to anchor off Cottle’s 
Island till daylight! The vessel dragged at 
her anchor all night, and he expected nothing 
but to be drifted upon the rocks, where nothing 
62 



There was quite a crowd in Mr. Tobias Clark’s store. 





Kept the Light 63 

would have saved him from being ground to 
pieces ! 

What was the matter with Little Bear light? 
That was what Link Scatterby wanted to 
know ! 

There was quite a crowd in Mr. Tobias 
Clark’s store, as was often the case when a 
vessel had just come in, and all were listening 
to what had happened to Link Scatterby, on ac- 
count of the darkness of the Little Bear light. 

Jane had rowed over, to get Little 
She’s shoe, which had been lost off at the 
house-warming, the night before, and which 
Jo had said he would leave at the store. 
(Horatio was sleeping off his four hours’ 
watch.) 

And Jane heard all that Link Scatterby said 
about having a light-keeper that would allow 
such a dreadful thing as that to happen ! 

Once in a while someone would nudge Link, 
with a nod in Jane’s direction; but what did 
Link Scatterby care? — he said it was time that 


64 How the Pennypackers 

everybody knew what folks thought about the 
slackness over to Little Bear light! 

A parcel of young ones were keeping it as 
much as anybody, and he should like to know 
if folks were going to put up with that ! 

Jane shrank away — to the very threshold 
of the door. Hull Harbor people had always 
been so kind to them ! They felt as if they 
and the light belonged to Hull Harbor and the 
Harbor to them — almost like one big family! 

And now it was plain that some people were 
ready to listen to Link Scatterby, if not to agree 
with him ! 

“ They’re an uncommonly handy lot of 
youngsters, over there to the light,” said Mr. 
Tobias Clark. “ And you can trust ’em, — 
every one of ’em ! ” 

Oh, how Jane loved Mr. Tobias Clark! — 
she quite forgot that he always refused to sell 
peppermints by the cent’s worth ! 

Link Scatterby said he had yet to know that 
the United States government appointed kids 


Kept the Light 


65 


to keep a lighthouse and that if Inspector Lit- 
tlefield had got used to having Seth Penny- 
packer over there at Little Bear and wasn’t 
willing to take the trouble to turn him away — 
why, there were folks that had spunk enough 
to go to Washington, to see if something 
couldn’t be done about it ! 

Dan Scatterby had been hanging about the 
store, but it had seemed to him wise to keep 
shy of Jane. She might feel called upon to at- 
tend to that little matter of the doll. 

He had found out, before now, that people 
who imposed upon Doxy were likely to have 
to reckon with Jane. 

But Jane only looked at him as if she were 
thinking of something else. 

His small, shrewd eyes began to look at the 
end of his nose; — the school-teacher knew 
that when Dan Scatterby began to look cross- 
eyed he was up to mischief ! 

“ My pa won’t go to Washington to get the 
lighthouse away from your pa — because I 


66 How the Pennypackers 

won’t let him,” he remarked amiably, as they 
two stood together just outside the store door. 
“ I’ll set up a yell ! — when I do that they all 
have to give in ! Ma won’t let him lick me be- 
cause I might have St. Vitus’ dance. I don’t 
want to live at the old lighthouse! ” 

Jane only half heard him; she was still listen- 
ing to the voices in the store. 

Dan, growing bolder, drew from his pocket 
a queer assortment of screws and springs, held 
them out in his hand before Jane’s eyes, and 
looked at them, reflectively. 

“ I guess you don’t know what those are, do 
you? ” he said, impressively. “ You would be 
mad enough with Jonas if you did! ” 

That remark really did take Jane’s attention 
from the talk going on in the store ! — If Jonas 
had been “ up to something ” she ought to know 
what it was ! 

“ You couldn’t guess! — you never saw any- 
thing like them, did you?” said Dan, pro- 
vokingly. 


Kept the Light 


67 


Jane looked disturbed; — you could never 
be quite sure how troublesome Jonas might be. 

“ It’s a secret but I’m going to tell you be- 
cause I know you’ll feel bad about it and I 
know how to make it all right again ! — these 
screws and springs and things are the walk and 
the talk out of Doxy’s doll ! ” 

Doxy’s doll ! — the color actually fled from 
Jane’s cheeks — in spite of the more serious 
things she had on her mind. That doll had 
been so wonderful a thing and Doxy so happy 
to have it! 

“ Jonas hooked it and cut it open to see what 
made it do it — but I know just how to put the 
walk and talk back again — you see I’ve got all 
the things — and I’ll go home with you, now, 
and do it! ” 

“How did Jonas get it? — when was it?” 
asked Jane. 

It didn’t suit Dan to tell anything that would 
show how great was his share in robbing Pe- 
pina of her remarkable gifts. 


68 


How the Pennypackers 


“ He just hooked it — somehow — when he 
had a chance,” he answered easily, “ to find out 
what made it walk and talk; and when he had 
found out — why, he couldn’t put these things 
back again — so — so I told him I would. But 
Doxy has got her doll back again, so I’ve got 
to go over to your house to do it! ” 

It was on the very tip of Jane’s tongue to 
say that he shouldn’t go over to Little Bear in 
her boat but the sudden thought of Doxy re- 
strained her — brave little Doxy, who had 
never said a word ! — who was always protect- 
ing bad little Jonas from the consequences of 
his mischief! 

“ Doxy knows it of course,” she said, half to 
herself. 

“Well, yes, she does — and she was pretty 
mad with Jonas,” said Dan, candidly. 

“ You couldn’t expect a kid like her wouldn’t 
be — with a doll like that ! But I told her I 
would come over, some day, and make the doll 


Kept the Light 69 

walk and talk again, same as ever. And I’ll 
go right over, now.” 

He was, in truth, afraid of what Jonas might 
tell of his share in the mischief — he knew that 
he had the whip-hand over Doxy ! — but he 
was willing to risk much to get hold of that doll 
again ! 

He was even now in disgrace at home because 
the kitchen clock would not go again after his 
experiments with it; but the Pennypackers were 
in too much trouble about the light, just now, 
to be making a great fuss about a small thing ! 

— and of what account was a doll, anyhow? 
Jane hesitated. She remembered how 

strained and pale Doxy’s face had looked when 
she went upstairs, her doll-box under her arm, 
the night bdfore, — how the corners of her 
mouth had drooped! Jane had thought, then, 
that the child was only tired and perhaps 
frightened about the light, as they had all been 

— but, poor Doxy ! — she was the sort of child 


70 How the Pennypackers 

that has the feelings of a mother for her dolls. 

So Jane was divided between a desire to tell 
Dan Scatterby just what she thought of him — 
for she had no doubt but that he had led Jonas 
into the mischief — and to forbid him from 
ever setting his foot on Little Bear, and a long- 
ing to ease Doxy’s mother-heart by the making 
whole of her doll. 

She thought it more than likely that Dan 
could do it; he had a real faculty for putting 
machinery together — in spite of his late fail- 
ure with the kitchen clock; — caused, possibly, 
by his absorption in the newer problem of the 
walking and talking of dolls. 

The recollection of Doxy’s sorrowful little 
face conquered. 

“ I know just what kind of a boy you are, 
Dan Scatterby,” said candid Jane. “ And I 
don’t think Jonas would ever have touched 
the doll if it hadn’t been for you. But 
if you’re sure you can undo the mischief you’ve 
done — why, you can get in.” 


Kept the Light 71 

He had been following her down to the land- 
ing, as they talked. 

He was not proud — except with the pride 
of carrying his point. It didn’t make any dif- 
ference what Jane Pennypacker said! — she 
wouldn’t even keep the light much longer! It 
was a pretty lucky thing that his Uncle Link 
had come so near to losing his vessel, since he 
hadn’t lost it — for it would now be easy for his 
father to be keeper of the Little Bear light! 

He jumped nimbly into Jane’s rowboat and 
took an oar. 


CHAPTER VI 


DAN SCATTERBY AND JONAS IN THE WOODSHED. 
HORATIO HAS A LETTER 

D OXY was down at the Little Bear land- 
ing when Jane and Dan Scatterby pulled 
the rowboat up there; when Doxy needed 
especial comfort she was always on the lookout 
for Jane — there were always Seth and Little 
She to want their mother; when you have come 
eight you mustn’t expect her any more. 

But when you have a Jane, — oh, happy you, 
if you have a Jane! Someone has written a 
pretty poem about wanting nothing better in 
heaven than “ to be a little sister there,” and it 
surely is a bit of heaven to have a big sister of 
the right kind ! — Doxy could have told you 
so ! 

Doxy’s face looked blue and scared when she 

saw Dan Scatterby. He stood up in the boat, 
72 


Kept the Light 


73 


as he tied her to the slip, and paused in his oc- 
cupation to look cross-eyed at her. (It was 
quite a thrilling experience to have Dan Scat- 
terby looked cross-eyed at you.) 

“ I’ve got your doll’s walk and talk in my 
pocket,” he said. “ I came over to put them 
back, for you, and make her just the same as 
she was before Jonas took them out! ” 

Doxy looked startled but not yet hopeful; 
she was, as Jonas said, “ a great one to be- 
lieve in fairy stories ” and Pepina had seemed 
to her as if she came out of one. Dan Scat- 
terby was just like the ogre that one might ex- 
pect ! 

But the ogre never offered to make things 
right ! 

Her mouth quivered as she raised inquiring 
eyes to Jane’s face. 

“ You didn’t know about — Pepina, did you, 
Jane?” 

Jane cuddled her. “ I think you were a 
brave little girl to keep it to yourself,” she 


74 How the Pennypackers 

said. “ And if you think, Dan Scatterby, that 
I don’t understand that you had as much or 
more to do with hacking that doll to pieces as 
Jonas had — why, you can’t know how well 
acquainted with you I am ! ” 

Jane wasn’t afraid of Scatterbys! — she 
didn’t know that they could turn them out of 
the lighthouse ! thought Doxy. 

Dan Scatterby made a threatening gesture 
behind Jane’s back, scowling fiercely and still 
looking cross-eyed. Doxy felt that the ogre 
must be pacified. And — oh, joy! — what if 
he could make Pepina herself again? 

“Are you sure you can mend the doll?” 
asked Jane — reading Doxy’s small, snub-nosed 
face, as if it were a book. 

“ Honest Injun — cross my throat — hope I 
may — ” Doxy, wide-eyed, watched the queer 
antics that Dan performed in proof of his good 
intentions. 

“ You can come up to the house, and if Doxy 
will trust you with the doll you can repair it in 


Kept the Light 75 

the woodshed; but don’t you get Jonas into 
any more mischief! ” said Jane crisply. 

Jane was of a peaceful disposition and not re- 
vengeful; but Scatterbys lay heavy on her 
mind. All the people, of Hull Harbor were 
their friends — except the Scatterbys, whom 
they would have reckoned upon as surely as any. 

Dan and Jonas were in the woodshed; Doxy 
had brought Pepina, but the operation was quite 
too much for her motherly eyes to bear. She 
took Seth out upon the rocks — so far that they 
could not hear the sound of the hammer in 
the woodshed. 

Jane went in search of Horatio, who was 
just up, after the sleep that had made up for 
his night watch. She had brought him a letter 
from the postoffice — and the handwriting 
was Phonse Bruce’s. 

Phonse Bruce was Horatio’s very greatest 
friend. His story was about as queer as any 
of those in Doxy’s fairy-books, for once he had 
been only Phonny Bee, living with Grandfather 


76 


How the Pennypackers 


Bee, in a little house up on the Sound, bare- 
footed and with scarcely enough to eat; and 
now he was one of the richest boys in the 
world ! 

The way of it was that he had been wrecked 
at sea and picked up by Grandfather Bee’s son, 
who adopted him; then his sister Rosemary and 
her governess had happened to come to the 
lighthouse and had seen and known him. 

So it was the Pennypackers who had brought 
him to his own again, and they were very happy 
about it. 

You who have read “ The Six Little Penny- 
packers ” know all about their friends the 
Bruces, of course, but as they have a good deal 
to do with this story, everyone must be made ac- 
quainted with them. The Pennypackers them- 
selves would tell you that no story about them 
would be worth telling if it left the Bruces out! 

Jane decided to tell Horatio of the com- 
plaint that Link Scatterby was making, that he 
had been obliged to anchor outside because of 


Kept the Light 


77 


the darkness of the light, before she gave him 
Phonse’s letter. In Jane’s experience the pill 
went before the jelly, and the jelly made you 
forget the pill — sometimes. 

She led the way to the parlor, with a beck- 
oning finger; there was privacy in the parlor, 
because there was a beautiful spun-glass ship 
there and many shell ornaments, which 
the younger ones were allowed to look at 
only on Sundays or as a reward for good be- 
havior. 

Then, with the door shut, she told about the 
PemetiCy straining at her anchor all night, close 
upon the Gridiron rocks, because there was no 
light to show the way into the Harbor. 

Horatio’s forehead tied itself into a hard 
knot — but it always did that now at the men- 
tion of the Scatterbys. 

“ So Link Scatterby said that, did he? ” said 
Horatio, after a whole minute. 

He was thinking of the moment when he had 
looked out along the shaft of light that flung 


yS How the Pennypackers 

itself far out beyond the Gridiron rocks and 
Cottle’s Island. 

“ Must have anchored on the lee side of Cot- 
tle’s, of course,” he said reflectively — “well, 
I just don’t believe it, that’s all ! ” 

Jane fairly gasped with astonishment. You 
always expected something of Horatio, and 
Jane had always felt that he was brighter than 
she was — although the school-teacher said it 
was a pretty even thing — but this idea had not 
even occurred to her. 

Jane never told lies herself and she never ex- 
pected other people to do so. 

Horatio never told lies, either, but he knew 
perfectly well that there were people who did; 
so he had made up his mind that it was a good 
way, when you heard anything new to consider 
whether it was true or not. 

Many people standing in a lighthouse tower 
when the lamp is lighted are so dazzled by the 
blaze, that they can see but a very short dis- 
tance outside; but Horatio’s eyes were so ac- 


Kept the Light 


79 


customed to the condition that they were 
scarcely dazzled at all. He felt sure that 
there was no vessel off Cottle’s Island — at 
least off that side of Cottle’s Island where a 
vessel must have lain for safety — the night 
before. 

“ Everybody in the store seemed to believe 
it,” said Jane slowly. 

“ Hull Harbor people will believe any kind of 
a yarn ! — they don’t know the world !” — and 
Horatio wagged his head very wisely. (That 
sounded a little as if Horatio had got “ the big 
head ” from going to Europe; — that does hap- 
pen, you know ! But he was so sensible he was 
sure to get over it soon !) 

“ How are you going to prove that Link 
Scatterby’s vessel wasn’t lying off Cottle’s 
Island, last night?” asked Jane — who had a 
very straightforward way with her. 

“ That’s another thing! ” admitted Horatio, 
looking down, and tracing the pattern of the 
yellow parrot on the home-made rug with his 


80 How the Pennypackers 

foot. “ But there’s one thing sure — I shan’t 
give up without trying! ” 

“And the light was out! — we can’t deny 
that, anyway! ” 

Sometimes Jane’s straightforwardness seemed 
pretty severe ! — especially when you were the 
one to blame! 

Horatio had a knot in his forehead that 
looked as if it might never come untied! 

Jane wished she hadn’t said it — and that 
made her think of the jelly after the pill; she 
put her hand into her pocket and drew out 
Phonse’s letter. 


CHAPTER VII 


WHAT HORATIO BELIEVES PHONSE AND HE CAN 
DO. A PUFF OF SMOKE 

T T O RATIO’S face flushed with delight and 
the knot in his forehead smoothed itself 
out, in a twinking. 

Jane was very glad that the letter had come 
just when Horatio was troubled but she said 
to herself that she didn’t see what even Phonse 
Bruce could do to help them in just such a diffi- 
culty as this — as we all know, Uncle Sam 
hires his light-keepers because they faithfully 
keep the lights — and rich friends can’t help 
them if they don’t ! 

You see how it was — Jane had a very prac- 
tical mind; sometimes it made her think that 
everything was going wrong; in her own family 
they thought it was because her hair grew in a 

widow’s peak; but one thing they all knew — 
81 


&2 


How the Pennypackers 


if things did look hard to Jane she could be 
depended to do her best about them, and she 
had proved — in a shipwreck ! — that she 
wasn’t a coward. 

In fact, Horatio hadn’t thought of any help 
at all; haven’t you had things seem right, all 
at once, just because you saw the face of a 
friend? 

Phonse’s handwriting had just that effect upon 
Horatio. 

His face was beaming like a full moon when 
he turned to Jane : 

“What do you think? — Phonse has got a 
steam yacht, already!” he said. “You know 
he said he would surprise us when he came 
down! He’s coming down here in it!” 

Steam yachts were common enough in the 
waters about Hull Harbor, in the season, and 
yet it did almost take Jane’s breath away to 
think that a boy like Phonse, not yet quite 
sixteen, could own one, all by himself! 

Phonse had owned a circus tiger, which 


Kept the Light 


83 


might be thought to be about as astonishing a 
possession as a boy could have — and he had 
been able to build Jo a new vessel when his 
other one was wrecked, but somehow, that he 
should have a steam yacht and be coming down 
to Hull Harbor in it seemed to Jane the most 
wonderful thing she had ever known about 
Phonse ! 

u His tutor has come too, and he will come 
down, with him, on the yacht,” said Horatio. 

Now Horatio thought a great deal about 
having a chance to learn something and had 
been greatly interested in the fact that Phonse 
was to have the brother of his sister Rose- 
mary’s governess come from France to teach 
him; — but you could see that even Horatio 
didn’t think much about the tutor, compared to 
the steam yacht! 

But with their father so ill and all the care 
of the lighthouse upon them Jane didn’t see how 
Horatio — or any of them — could have much 
fun with Phonse and his yacht. 


84 How the Pennypackers 

If Horatio were like some boys there would 
be danger that he would forget all about the 
lighthouse ! 

But that Horatio was in no danger of for- 
getting that he was now head-keeper of the 
light was shown by his very next words: 

“ I rather think Phonse and I, together, can 
take the wind out of Link Scatterby’s 
sails ! ” 

That cheered Jane’s heart, because it sounded 
hopeful and courageous; but yet she said to her- 
self that she couldn’t quite see how Phonse, be- 
cause he was rich and owned a steam yacht, 
could help to prove that the Pemetic didn’t 
spend the night, straining at her anchor, off 
Cottle’s Island! 

And he certainly couldn’t prove that the Lit- 
tle Bear light wasn’t out! 

But she didn’t say these things because she 
knew that, if she did, Horatio might say the 
same dreadful thing that he said when she sat 
upon their crate of blueberries while the 


Kept the Light 85 

steamer that was to have taken them whistled 
and went off ! 

“Jane, you are slow!” was what he had 
said. Slow in her mind, he had meant; and 
sometimes Jane was afraid she didn’t think as 
quickly as the others. So she said to herself 
that she would better wait and see what Ho- 
ratio, with Phonse’s help, could do to “ take the 
wind out of Link Scatterby’s sails.” 

“ Phonse says his yacht can beat anything on 
the coast ! ” Horatio continued excitedly. “ It 
was built for a racer. The owner had to go 
off to Egypt for his health, so a friend of the 
Bruces got it for Phonse. He said he was 
going to have one but I didn’t think it would 
be until next summer.” 

“ The tutor must be nice if he is Made- 
moiselle Picot’s brother,” said Jane, thought- 
fully. For Mademoiselle had been much at 
the lighthouse, when the Bruces had had a sum- 
mer cottage on the Sound, and had taught the 
little Pennypackers some French and a good 


86 How the Pennypackers 

deal of dancing; and they had all had most 
beautiful times together. 

But Horatio, — although he was a boy who 
loved his book — couldn’t think anything about 
the tutor, but only of the steam yacht. 

He went and got the spy-glass and took it 
up to the tower to look off ; Phonse had written 
that they were to set out from Boston soon 
after his letter was posted; who could say how 
soon a yacht that could beat anything on the 
coast might arrive? 

Jane suddenly remembered what was going 
on in the woodshed. 

She could not feel that Dan Scatterby and 
Jonas were a pair wholly to be trusted, even 
when their work seemed to be the repairing 
of previous mischief. 

There was no hammering in the woodshed, 
now, but Doxy, standing not far off, on a rock, 
with little Seth beside her, had not found out 
that the noise had ceased, for she had her 


Kept the Light 


87 


fingers in her ears. To hear them hammering 
away at Pepina had been too much to bear and 
yet she could not stay far away. 

There was a glow of satisfaction upon Dan 
Scatterby’s face that made him as Jane said to 
herself, “ almost a good-looking boy.” 

“ Fve got the walk back into her,” he said 
triumphantly. “ But the talking part is 
broken.” 

He set the doll on her feet and she walked 
- — but it was not with the tripping, clicking 
lightness of her old gait; she hitched and hob- 
bled as if she had suddenly grown old and de- 
crepit. 

“ If that’s what you call making her walk 
again! ” said Jane scornfully. 

“ Well, I guess you’d think it was something 
if you’d done it! You’d better believe ’twas 
a job ! ” said Dan, wiping the perspiration from 
his forehead. “ And if you’ll let me take her 
over to the Harbor I’ll get Tilbury Gott to make 


88 How the Pennypackers 

a new talker — he’s awful handy.” Tilbury 
Gott was the blacksmith ! 

Doxy thrust her small, tear-stained face in 
at the door. 

“ See, Doxy, she can walk,” said Jane hope- 
fully, “ and perhaps she’ll do it better after a 
while ! ” 

Doxy looked at the doll, hitching herself, 
pitifully, like a lame old woman, over the wood- 
shed work-bench, and with a burst of tears she 
snatched Pepina and hugged her to her heart. 

“ I’ve got her most fixed so she’ll talk, 
Doxy,” said Dan persuasively, “ and if you’ll 
let me take her over to Tilbury Gott — ” 

“No, no! — you’ve made her worser and 
worser and you shall never take her any more ! ” 
cried Doxy. “ You’re a dreffly wicked, cross- 
eyed boy — ” 

“ Well, now, you’d just better quit calling 
names ! ” cried Dan hotly. “ My uncle Link 
that you ’most shipwrecked is going to turn 
you out of this lighthouse. Your father 


Kept the Light 


89 


has got rheumatic fever and he’s a 
great light-keeper! They were talking about 
sending for the Inspector, anyway, — they’ll do 
it right straight off, when I tell ’em that your 
father has got rheumatic fever! ” 

Dan was off, with a backward, cross-eyed 
look that was enough to terrify the stoutest 
heart. 

“ What does he mean by saying that father 
has rheumatic fever?” asked Jane severely 
(people were apt to speak severely to little 
Jonas when anything unpleasant happened). 

“ Papa kept calling to me to bring him a 
glass of water and I just said he was awful hot 
and thirsty; and Dan said he must have rheu- 
matic fever — that’s all! ” Jonas’ scared blue 
eyes were full of conscious innocence. 

“ That’s enough to give the Scatterbys an- 
other handle!” said Jane, with a great sigh. 
“I ought not to have let him come over!” 

Jane went up to the tower to find Horatio 
and consult with him about some way to let 


go How the Pennypackers 

everyone know that their father was not ill 
with rheumatic fever. She thought there was 
no need of worrying their mother about the 
Scatterbys and their unfriendly doings just yet. 

But Horatio would not listen to anything 
about Scatterbys! He could think of nothing 
but Phonse, who was coming on his steam 
yacht. 

What that little rascal of a Dan Scatterby 
told was of no account, he said; couldn’t Jane, 
looking through the spy-glass, see a puff of 
smoke, away off to leeward of Great Goose 
Island? 

He didn’t see what that could be except 
Phonse’s yacht I 


CHAPTER VIII 


A STEAM YACHT IN THE HARBOR. ONLY 
PHONNY BEE TURNED INTO SOME- 
BODY ELSE 

r\AN SCATTERBY found the old row- 
^ boat at the slip which anyone was wel- 
come to use, when it was there and not at Hull 
Harbor. It was really the ferry-boat, without 
a ferryman, between the Harbor and Little 
Bear Island. If you were alone in it you had 
to row and bail, at the same time — but that 
was no inconvenience to Dan who wouldn’t 
have hesitated to go to sea in a bowl, like the 
Wise Men of Gotham, if that form of naviga- 
tion had ever come into fashion, at Hull Har- 
bor. 

The only objection he felt to rowing and bail- 
ing, at the same time, was that it was 
slow work and he was in a great hurry to 

get to the Harbor and spread the story that 

91 


92 How the Pennypackers 

Papa Pennypacker had rheumatic fever! 

When people heard of that, as well as of 
the danger that his Uncle Link had been in be- 
cause of the darkness of the light, they would 
understand that the Pennypackers ought to be 
turned out of the lighthouse ! 

Even the people who thought so much of the 
Pennypackers that they wouldn’t sign the let- 
ter to be written to the Inspector would change 
their minds, now! 

What would Uncle Sam say when he knew 
that one of his lighthouses — on a very rocky 
coast, too ! — was kept by the Little Penny- 
packers? 

Who could keep the watches when Papa Pen- 
nypacker had rheumatic fever? 

(Dan thought it quite likely that he had. 
It wasn’t needful to look too closely into the 
matter. Dan had not, at the best of times, 
“ a taste exact for actual fact.”) 

Mama Pennypacker was having about as 
much as she could do to take care of Little 


Kept the Light 


93 


She, who had barely come off safely from a 
struggle to get seven teeth, in her second sum- 
mer; could Mama Pennypacker be expected to 
take night watches? 

Everything depended upon Horatio and 
Jane! It was Dan’s opinion that Jane was a 
good deal of a girl, although he didn’t like 
her; but of what use would a girl be in a light- 
house tower? Of course she would go to 
sleep ! The flame of the lamp must be kept up 
to a certain number of inches — he had read that 
in the directions hung up inside the tower door; 
could a girl be trusted to attend to a thing like 
that? 

He decided that when his father kept the 
light his sister Lida would better be taught to 
keep the lamp clean — a fellow might get tired 
of too much scrubbing — 

It was when he had got just as far as that 
in his plans that he caught sight of a thin 
little smoke wreath, far off against the hori- 


zon. 


94 


How the Pennypackers 


It wasn’t steamer day! — it must be a steam 
yacht — a pretty big one — bound for Eden, 
where some of the cottagers stayed late in the 
season. 

She wouldn’t come much farther towards 
Hull Harbor but would steer her course around 
the other side of Cottle’s Island, out into the 
Bay. 

Dan pulled the old rowboat up to the 
landing and ran to Mr. Tobias Clark’s 
store. When you had something to tell that 
you wished everyone to know, just as soon 
as possible, you told it at Mr. Tobias Clark’s 
store. 

There were not so many people in the store 
as there had been earlier in the day but there 
were enough to speedily spread the news, from 
one end of Hull Harbor to the other, that Mr. 
Seth Pennypacker, over at the light, had rheu- 
matic fever. 

And more than one old fisherman looked anx- 
iously out to sea, with a thought of the fishing 



A fine new steam yacht was steering straight for Hull Harbor 







Kept the Light 


95 


vessels and hoped that “ it would never get so 
that they couldn’t feel to depend on Little 
Bear light! ” 

A good many who had refused to sign that 
letter to the Inspector, lest they should do Seth 
Pennypacker an injury, decided then that it was 
their duty to sign ! 

But before the matter had been thoroughly 
talked over, at the store and the steamboat 
wharf, there was a new sensation. 

A fine, new, steam yacht — she was big and 
a beauty! — was steering straight for Hull 
Harbor ! 

Could she be putting in for supplies? At 
the store they got out the big feather duster 
and tried to freshen up the looks of the stock 
a bit. She surely was not putting in for re- 
pairs; she was too trim and jaunty and new for 
that! 

A rowboat was coming over from Little 
Bear — so someone whose eyes had been for 
a moment turned away from the yacht had dis- 


96 How the Pennypackers 

covered. That must be Horatio Pennypacker 
going for the doctor! 

But what did Horatio Pennypacker do but 
row directly out to the stylish yacht that was 
lying a stone’s throw off the wharf. The 
tender was just putting off but the tall boy who 
was getting into it changed his mind and got 
into the Little Bear rowboat, instead, and 
came rowing ashore with Horatio Penny- 
packer. 

“Well, I snum if that ain’t Phonny Bee! ” 
cried Cap’n ’Siah Thimble, who was just going 
out to look after his lobster pots; — and from 
the fishing vessels and the canning factory a 
crowd began to gather, almost as suddenly as 
it gathers in a city street. 

Although he had turned into rich Phonse 
Bruce, almost as if a fairy had tapped him with 
her wand, and had been away for more than a 
year, he was still Hull Harbor’s Phonny Bee, 
a motherless boy, who had fished and dug 
clams, gone to school when he could get a 


Kept the Light 97 

chance and very often felt the weight of Grand- 
father Bee’s crutch. 

“ Gee ! Don’t I wish I could turn into 
somebody else ! ” murmured Dan Scatterby, 
who was still engaged in spreading the news 
from Little Bear around the wharf. 

“ It appears as if we ought to do something 
or other to show him honor! ” said Tilbury 
Gott, the blacksmith. There was a little talk 
here and there and then, before you would have 
thought it could be done, up went the flag on 
the tall pole that stood on the bit of a green 
in front of the schoolhouse, and instantly the 
thunder of a cannon acknowledged it from the 
yacht. 

“ Just because he’s rich,” muttered Dan 
Scatterby, scornfully. 

But that was not the reason ! — nor was it 
because Phonse and his sister had given good 
gifts to Hull Harbor — a bell for the school- 
house and a building for the library — but only 
just because he was their Phonny Bee, a real, 


98 How the Pennypackers 

up-to-everything boy, with a heart in the right 
place ! 

Horatio stayed in the rowboat. The flag 
and the cannon warmed his heart but it was a 
heart that was a little sore about the way 
things were going at Hull Harbor. 

Of course what Dan Scatterby said was not 
always to be believed but danger to the ships 
scared people — you couldn’t wonder at that! 
— and Link Scatterby’s story of his peril had 
influenced them. Horatio felt pretty sure that 
they were going to send a letter to the In- 
spector. He thought that people who had 
known Pennypackers for so many years ought 
to have a little more faith in them! 

Seth was tooting the fog-horn, over at Little 
Bear ! — it was his way of showing people that 
Little Bear had a share in this affair! 

“ I am going visiting to the lighthouse,” said 
Phonse, taking off his cap to the crowd, with 
the graceful manners that he had learned 
abroad — although Hull Harbor would have 


Kept the Light 


99 


told you that he had pretty good ones before 
he went away! “ I shall be over another day 
and I shall hope to do the honors of my yacht 
to all of you ! ” 

Everybody cheered — but Dan Scatterby 
muttered : 

“ That’s the last time you’ll go visiting 
Pennypackers at Little Bear light! ” 

And yet I think the time may come when 
Dan Scatterby will show that he is not alto- 
gether a bad boy! 


CHAPTER IX 


DAN SCATTERBY HAS AN ADVENTURE. THE 
SCATTERBYS DO SOMETHING THAT 
THEY ARE ASHAMED OF 

D AN SCATTERBY felt that, although 
he was in a hurry to get home and tell 
about the rheumatic fever at the light, he must 
have a closer view of that yacht. 

It wasn’t every day that you saw such a 
steam yacht as that lying off Hull Harbor! 

He got into the leaky old ferry-boat and 
pushed off, towards the yacht. 

Dan loved a fine boat and he knew more 
about one like this than would have been ex- 
pected — more than a “ fresh-water ” boy could 
ever learn from books! 

Fresh water boys know electric cars and 
motor cars, and, nowadays, even flying ma- 


IOO 


Kept the Light ioi 

chines; the Hull Harbor boy knew everything 
that floats ! 

Dan began to row around the yacht, wide- 
eyed, taking in every one of her beautiful lines, 
from her bow, with her name, Mermaid , upon 
it, to her slender stern that fitted the water just 
as a swan does. 

Now he had rowed that old Bear Island boat 
dozens of times and had bailed just as naturally 
as he rowed, but he had never before happened 
to have his eyes and his mind fixed upon some- 
thing else besides rowing and bailing. He 
didn’t know that he wasn’t bailing until he felt 
the water around his ankles ! 

He fell to bailing with a will but there was 
too much water for the old tin dipper to have 
much effect upon; the boat was beginning to 
sink! 

He flung himself over the side into the 
water, still clinging to the side but he pulled her 
over and she filled. He let go and clutched an 
oar to save himself. He could swim — of 


102 How the Pennypackers 

course, being a Hull Harbor boy — but he 
wasn’t used to doing it in his clothes — and the 
waves were uncomfortably big — and his left 
leg which their old horse had kicked the week 
before was pretty stiff, and — you wouldn’t be- 
lieve a rowboat like that would suck and make 
a kind of whirlpool when she sank, like a big 
vessel, but that’s what that rowboat did ! — 
and Dan Scatterby, clinging to the oar and 
striking out as well as he could, cried “Help! 
help ! ” at the very top of his voice. 

The lame leg wouldn’t work at all ! — he 
knew he was going to sink, when he was seized 
by the collar of his jacket and drawn into a 
shining white rowboat, with glittering brass 
mountings, which was not heaven, as for one 
dazed moment it seemed to Dan as if it might 
be, but only the tender of the Mermaid . 

“ That might have been a pretty close 
shave ! ” said the young man who had pulled 
him into the tender. 

Dan picked himself from the bottom of the 


Kept the Light 103 

boat and shook himself like a water-soaked 
dog. 

“ See here ! — perhaps you’d better save some 
of that water till you get ashore,” exclaimed 
his rescuer, trying to shield himself from the 
shower. “ And the next time you go to sea in 
a tub better see that the seams are tight! I 
was looking at you from the yacht and I 
couldn’t see what kept that thing afloat, at 
all!” 

Dan’s shrewd eyes looked suddenly at 
his nose; he was not too dazed to have an 
idea ! 

“ It was that old boat they kept at Little Bear 
for folks to go back and to in ! It’s a wonder 
that somebody hadn’t got drowned! You’d 
think they’d be ashamed of themselves, wouldn’t 
you? My getting ’most drowned will show 
that Pennypackers ain’t fit to keep the. light, 
won’t it? ” 

The young man looked curiously at him. 
Even in the excitement of his new idea Dan was 


104 How the Pennypackers 

conscious of a hope that he should be taken on 
board the yacht, but he was being rowed 
steadily ashore and did not feel encouraged to 
ask any favors. 

“ I know the fellow that owns that yacht,” 
he said, after a while. “ He’s nobody but 
Phonny Bee.” No answer; a little amusement 
was added to the curious look in the young 
man’s eyes. 

“ But I expect he’ll stick up for Pennypackers, 
every time! Anyhow you’ve got to be a wit- 
ness that I ’most got drowned, ’long of Penny- 
packers being so slack as to keep that old row- 
boat!” 

They had reached the landing, by this time, 
and Dan was obliged to scramble out of the 
tender. 

“ You’d better get into some dry clothes, just 
as soon as possible,” said the young man seri- 
ously. “ If anyone demands damages of you 
for the loss of the rowboat I’m willing to 
testify that it wasn’t worth anything.” 


Kept the Light 105 

And he rowed away — as if that were all 
there was to it! 

Dan suddenly remembered some things that 
his sister Lida was in the habit of saying about 
manners. You didn’t want to be girly but 
neither did you want a fellow like that — who 
thought he was some! — to suppose that a Hull 
Harbor boy didn’t know anything! 

“ I’m much obliged to you ! — I’ll do as 
much for you sometime!” he called — some- 
what gruffly, because manners were an effort. 

“ It’s not worth mentioning,” replied the 
young man, politely. He touched his hand to 
his cap and Dan attempted to respond — Lida 
would have been encouraged ! — but there was 
no cap upon his head. 

“ Floated off into the Bay by this time,” 
muttered Dan — “ and ought to be charged to 
Pennypackers ! ” 

He ran all the way home; — partly on ac- 
count of his wet clothes but chiefly to report 
the new evidence against Pennypackers. 


106 How the Pennypackers 

There were several families of Scatterbys in 
Hull Harbor and they all lived on the edge of 
a swamp, known as Scatterby’s swamp, near 
Arrowhead Lake, a great, beautiful sheet of 
water, which the summer visitors had named be- 
cause of Indian relics they had found there. 

Cap’n Hiram Scatterby, Dan’s father, lived 
in the house nearest the village but it was a long 
run in wet clothes and Dan dared not accept a 
lift from Laban Hull, on his buckboard; he did 
stop, however, to tell Laban Hull of the new 
evidence of the Pennypackers’ unfitness to keep 
the light. 

“ Well, the Inspector ought to have seen that 
there was a new rowboat, over to Little Bear, 
sure enough,” said Laban Hull — which was 
not placing the blame where Dan thought it 
belonged. He looked at his nose and scowled 
at Laban Hull, as he ran on. 

At home, his mother hugged and cried over 
him, for the dangers he had passed and they 
all agreed with him that the blame belonged to 


Kept the Light 


107 


the Pennypackers — all, that is, except Lida. 
She was a queer girl, in Dan’s opinion. She 
wouldn’t stand up for her own side unless she 
was sure it was the right side ! 

Now Dan, I fear, believed in standing up for 
his own side, right or wrong ! 

Perhaps there are some grown people like 
that. 

Dan’s father and his Uncle Link came home 
before Dan had his dry clothes on. Link had 
the letter to the Inspector, with all the names 
signed to it that he could possibly get. 

And he immediately sat down at the queer 
old desk, that was all banged up from having 
been, so many years, to sea, and added to the 
letter all about Dan’s narrow escape from 
drowning, on account of the “ gross negligence ” 
of the light-keeper ! 

Link Scatterby had more than once been the 
school-master and his learning was much re- 
spected. 

“ It’s almost time for the Inspection Boat, 


io8 How the Pennypackers 

anyway,” said Lida; “why don’t you wait?” 

Lida was peeling onions for the chowder, for 
dinner, and there were red rims around her 
eyes; it may have been the onions that caused 
them but Dan had observed that Lida al- 
ways looked like that, when they talked about 
trying to get the light away from the Penny- 
packers. 

“ The Inspector may send the mate along 
with the supplies; he does,, sometimes for this 
season’s trip; and we want him to know just 
how things are, himself,” answered Link. 

“ The rheumatic fever and my getting ’most 
drowned will fetch the Inspector,” said Dan 
triumphantly. 

Lida was looking directly at him; she could 
look things and make them just as plain as if 
she said them! She looked: don’t you remem- 
ber what good friends we’ve always been with 
Horatio and Jane? 

And besides that she looked: “ What would 
the Pennypackers do without the light?” 


Kept the Light 109 

But Dan only stared fiercely at her, with his 
eyes fixed on his nose; — Lida hated to see that 
cross-eyed look of his ! 

What did girls know about business? — she’d 
better keep her looks to herself ! 

Wouldn’t Uncle Link know what was 
right? — Uncle Link, who had been to the Nor- 
mal School, and would have gone to college if 
he could have kept away from the sea? And 
how could you do any business if you kept think- 
ing of the other fellow? Lida hadn’t been in 
the store when the vessels came in, nor heard 
the summer visitors talk — big guns, who owned 
mines and railroads — as he had. 

Link went out hurriedly, with the letter to 
the Inspector in his pocket. Cap’n Hiram Scat- 
terby followed him more slowly. 

At the doon he turned and looked at his 
wife; — she had been looking at him a little as 
Lida looked at Dan. 

“ Seth Pennypacker never was rugged 
enough to keep a light! ” he said. 


no How the Pennypackers 

“ It isn’t as if he hadn’t some smart young- 
sters to help him,” said his wife. 

Cap’n Scatterby only made a little growling 
noise in his throat for answer — as if he were 
angry. 

Haven’t you ever been secretly angry with 
yourself for something that you had done or 
were doing, and had it make you feel as if you 
were angry with everyone else? 

That was exactly the way that Cap’n Hiram 
Scatterby felt when he answered his wife by a 
growl I 


CHAPTER X 


PHONSE AND HORATIO PLAN TO “ TAKE THE 
WIND OUT OF LINK SCATTERBY’s SAILS.” 

CAN THE TUTOR BE TRUSTED WITH 
THE LIGHT? 

TT 7HILE Dan Scatterby was being saved 
* * from drowning by the young man from 
the Mermaid , Phonse Bruce and Horatio were 
up in the tower-room at the lighthouse, trying 
to decide what had better be done. 

They had shared their troubles and their joys 
when Phonse Bruce was Phonny Bee, and it 
seemed just as natural to do so now. 

The great, delightful difference to Phonse 
was that he could do helpful things, now, that 
he couldn’t have done if he had still been 
Phonny Bee. Papa Pennypacker had hobbled 
out of his room to see Phonse in the living- 
room. He had no fever and was not likely to 


hi 


1 12 How the Pennypackers 

J 

have one, although he had been thirsty and 
called to Jonas for water, while the doll was 
being repaired. But it was easy to see that he 
would not very soon be able to climb the tower 
stairs or take even a share of the watch. 

Jane longed to take her share, turn and turn 
about, with Horatio, but Phonse joined with 
Horatio in head-shaking over that idea. 

He fully shared Dan Scatterby’s opinion that 
Jane was “ a good deal of a girl,” but he 
thought that was hardly the thing for a girl 
to do. 

Besides, although Jane would undoubtedly 
keep awake, people might think she wouldn’t. 

And Phonse had been told about that letter 
that was probably going to be sent to the In- 
spector, asking for the removal of Seth Penny- 
packer from the position of keeper of Little 
Bear light. 

“ Your father will have to ask for an assist- 
ant,” said Phonse. 

“ You see it’s a pretty bad time to do that,” 


Kept the Light 


XI 3 


said Horatio, knotting his forehead. “ The 
pay is so small that the right man can’t be 
found to come here, especially at this time of 
year. And it would seem like owning up to 
what Scatterbys claim — that the Pennypackers 
are not fit to keep the light I ” 

“ I see! ” said Phonse, wagging his head as 
wisely as Horatio had done. 

“ Uncle Sam likes to have a keeper who has 
boys,” Horatio went on. “ You know red- 
headed Rufe Scatterby is almost a man — he’s 
off fishing now, but he would like to stay at 
home this winter and keep the light — and Dan 
Scatterby thinks he could run two or three light- 
houses and the store, too ! ” 

It was plain that Phonse had on his thinking- 
cap; he looked just as he did when he was 
Phonny Bee, planning how he could get the very 
best price for his catch of mackerel ! 

They couldn’t say a word about this diffi- 
culty to Papa Pennypacker because it made his 
rheumatism worse to be worried. He did not 


414 How the Pennypackers 

yet know that Link Scatterby had been on his 
way home when the Little Bear light was dark, 
and had never heard a whisper of the petition 
that had been gotten up for his removal. 

After he had looked out at Cottle’s Island, 
for a full minute, absent-mindedly, Phonse 
said : 

“ The very first thing to do is to prove that 
Link Scatterby wasn’t anchored off Cottle’s 
when the tower was dark! They can make a 
good deal out of that! — and if you’re sure his 
schooner wasn’t there — ” 

“ I’m as sure of it as anybody can be of what 
he sees with his own eyes,” said Horatio. 
“ But I’ve thought it over and over and I can 
tell you it’s one thing to know it and another 
thing to prove it ! ” 

Phonse’s face suddenly glowed. He had 
been rich only a little more than a year and he 
didn’t always realize how much he could do 
with his new possessions. And down here, he 
had begun to feel just like Phonny Bee, who 


Kept the Light 1 1 5 

wouldn’t have any supper unless he had caught 
some fish! 

“ We’ll just go along in the Mermaid in 
Link’s tracks, and find out where he put in ! — 
or if he didn’t put in anywhere, just what time 
he got along. Everyone knows the Pemetic 
and she couldn’t have come along the coast 
without being seen! ” 

Horatio’s face had brightened but it dark- 
ened again — suddenly. 

“ Perhaps you think I can go off and leave 
the light, just as well as not! ” he said. He 
was thinking, for the first time since Phonny 
Bee had changed into Phonse Bruce, that it 
made people thoughtless to be rich ! — it’s al- 
ways well to wait, at least a minute or two, be- 
fore you think hard things about your friends ! 

“ It’s easy to make that all right ! ” said 
Phonse. “ My tutor, Monsieur Edouard Picot, 
will come over here from the yacht and stay 
while we are gone. (You must remember to 
call him Mr. Edward Picot, because he means 


1 1 6 How the Pennypackers 

to stay in this country and be an American.) It 
will be a high time for him ! — no, I don’t 
mean because it will be in a tower, I wasn’t 
thinking of making a pun, but because — well 
because of something I’d better not tell you 
just now — not until I hear from my mother.” 

You might think that Phonse was going about 
in the world doing exactly as he pleased, but 
very soon found out that he deferred in every- 
thing to his mother. — Having been brought 
up without one he realized what a happy thing 
it was to be able to do that! He always said 
“ my mother ” so proudly and happily! 

“ Does he know how? ” said Horatio, seri- 
ously. For he still thought that Phonse failed 
to realize what a serious crisis there was in the 
affairs of the Pennypackers. 

“ Know how? ” echoed Phonse, with a scorm 
ful accent — “ you’d just better believe he does ! 
— though there’s something about his knowing 
how that I’d better not tell you just yet ! ” 

It was not like Phonse to make unnecessary 


Kept the Light 


1 17 

mysteries of simple things, so Horatio was con- 
tented to accept his word for the fact that his 
tutor understood a lighthouse lamp. 

But it still seemed to him not quite the safe 
thing to leave a stranger like that in sole charge 
of the light. 

“ I suppose you could go and follow up Link 
Scatterby’s tracks without me,” he said. 

“ But then we shouldn’t get any fun out of 
it ! ” said Phonse. “ We can leave all safe here 
and get some fun out of going! ” 

When he was Phonny Bee he had always got 
all the fun he could out of things and perhaps 
that was why he had been able to take the weight 
of Grandfather Bee’s crutch, and all his hard- 
ships, so lightly. 

But the more Horatio thought of it the 
stronger was his feeling that Phonse was taking 
the light-keeping a little too easily. 

“ You see, Phonse, you have to keep a light 
to know how much there is to it! ” he said anx- 
iously. “ And there’s been a fog-bank hanging 


1 1 8 How the Pennypackers 

off, down to the east’ard, for a day or two. It 
takes a man that has kept a watch all night to 
keep awake — ” 

“ Edward Picot has! Now are you satis- 
fied? ” said Phonse, but he didn’t offer any fur- 
ther explanations, although he could see by^the 
look on Horatio’s face that he was not. 

“ Well, I’ve heard people say that the light- 
keeper always thinks no one but himself can 
keep the light! ” — he added jestingly. 

“ But you see, Phonse, the light has been 
out once — just once, in all the time my father 
has kept it — and that was really my fault. 
When that has happened a fellow feels pretty 
scary about leaving the light! ” 

“ We’ll be gone only one night and we’ll get 
Jo Bracey to stay over here ! How will that 
do? ” asked Phonse. “ I was thinking it would 
be a good plan to ask Jo to go along with us; 
he knows all the places where Link would have 
been likely to put in, and he’s acquainted with 
about all the craft we shall meet, when we steam 



“ But you see, Phonse, the light has been out once — just 
once, in all the time my father has kept it.” 





Kept the Light 119 

along, hailing everything with “ Who saw the 
P emetic last Monday night? ’ ” 

“ It would be a good thing to have Jo,” said 
Horatio. He was beginning to feel pretty 
faint-hearted about this task of proving that 
the Pemetic had not been anchored off Cottle’s 
Island, in the darkness of the light, as her owner 
declared. 

But there was only one thing to do and that 
was to leave the light safely taken care of and 
go steaming along over Link Scatterby’s usual 
course, calling out, as if it were some game, 
“ Who’s seen the Pemetic? ” 

It would be a good thing to have Jo Bracey 
go with them; Jo and his fiddle — he had fid- 
dled them over many a heart-ache, far away 
from home I 

Jo was going off u coasting,” as far as Phila- 
delphia, soon, but now he was putting the fin- 
ishing touches to the cottage, and making things 
snug for the winter. 

“ I was thinking of asking Jo to stay and 


120 How the Pennypackers 

share the watch with your young man — ” said 
Horatio; “ Jo’s the only one that I would trust, 
just now.” 

“Try that, then,” said Phonse. 

But after all the planning this was what hap- 
pened. 

Papa Pennypacker said he could hobble up- 
stairs by to-morrow and Phonse’s young man 
could come and help, if he had a mind to, but 
he calculated to take care of his own light! 

Horatio said he didn’t know but he ought 
to be told what was going on — all about Link 
Scatterby and the letter to the Inspector. But 
Jane shook her head positively. Didn’t she 
count for anybody? asked Jane. Couldn’t 
she stand between her father and some hard 
things when he had rheumatism? Of course 
it would be well for the young man who knew 
how to keep a light to come over from the 
yacht, since her father was ill, but she wished 
it to be understood that the Pennypackers could 
keep the light ! 


Kept the Light 


I 2 1 


In fact she, Jane Pennypacker, would not be 
afraid to be left all alone with the light, a 
whole night long; nor when she knew that the 
Inspection Boat was coming! 

Mama Pennypacker said she was sure she 
didn’t know what was the matter with Jane 
since she was shipwrecked ! She didn’t seem to 
be afraid of anything! And Horatio quoted, 
grimly, a proverb from the parsing part in the 
back of the grammar: “ They that know noth- 
ing fear nothing.” 

Jane was likely to think of her boasts again, 
before long! 

But yet — you couldn’t help liking Jane! — 
it is so much better to be over-confident than 
to shirk and run away! 


CHAPTER XI 


THE MERMAID IS OFF. DOXY'S OPINION OF DAN 
SCATTERBY. THE INSPECTION BOAT 
IS ON HER WAY 

H AVING made up his mind to go, Horatio 
was on hand bright and early the next 
morning. 

Jo had accepted the invitation that Phonse 
had given him, and was at the landing when 
Horatio reached it — with Jane and the twins 
to see him off. He had on his Sunday clothes 
— you have to wear them oftener when you 
have a wife, so Jo had found out! — but he 
meant to get out of his Sunday coat just as soon 
as possible and take a hand at the management 
of that yacht, if possible — at least to find out 
how the thing was done ! He had learned 
almost everything there was to know about an 


122 


Kept the Light 123 

ocean steamer when he had crossed the At- 
lantic. 

That yacht was a delight to Jo’s eyes; he 
loved the sea and ships; he would have written 
a poem like “ The Liner She’s a Lady,” if it 
had not happened to him to be a rough sailor, 
who lived poetry instead of writing it. He had 
his fiddle; the sea and Jo’s fiddle were used to 
keeping company and as big as the noise of the 
sea was it never seemed to put Jo’s fiddle out! 
And he had the crow, in the same cage in which 
he had crossed the Atlantic! Chris had cried 
out that he wanted to go, and Pedy said he 
would make a lot of fun. 

The tender of the yacht came over for the 
party, a long, slender, white boat, with four 
sailors rowing, their eight long, slender blades 
making the spray fly and sparkle in the morn- 
ing sunshine. 

A small crowd had gathered to see them go. 

It was only a jolly little trip, everyone 
thought, and natural enough that Phonny Bee 


124 How the Pennypackers 

should like to take his friends out — and show 
off a bit! He wouldn’t be a boy if he didn’t! 

No one even guessed that the Mermaid was 
going to try to find the tracks of the Pemetic 
when she came down from Boston and was so 
nearly wrecked because Little Bear Island light 
was dark! 

Link Scatterby, himself, who was on the 
wharf, didn’t think of such a thing as that, al- 
though he was feeling a little uneasy, most of 
the time, now. 

Link was a careless fellow, without much 
thought about what was right or wrong — that 
kind can sometimes do a very bad thing which 
they would not have believed they would before- 
hand ! 

He had said to himself that here was a 
chance to put his oar in to get the keepership 
of the light for his brother. There was no 
troublesome question of right or wrong about 
the matter for Link — until afterwards. 

Doxy had Pepina under her arm — Pepina 


Kept the Light 


125 


who was an everyday doll, now, because of her 
misfortunes, and no longer kept in a box in the 
parlor cupboard. Her complexion was ruined, 
and her gait was limping; the air might do her 
good. 

She clutched the doll tightly when she saw 
Dan Scatterby. 

But Dan’s mind was not upon dolls. 

He had kept out of Horatio’s way since that 
little affair of the doll, and being at the edge 
of the wharf, he had heard Jonas Gilkey, down 
in the water beside it, in his lobster boat, call 
up to Nick Thimble that the Inspection Boat 
was down at “ the Light.” Now “ the Light ” 
was a very large lighthouse, far out upon a 
great rock; it was named for the Island of 
which Hull Harbor was one of the villages, but 
the name was seldom given it by the people on 
the coast; when you said “ the Light ” everyone 
knew what you meant. 

u Levi Gott was off the rock in his motor boat 
and he saw her,” explained Jonas Gilkey. 


126 How the Pennypackers 

“ She’s four or five days ahead of time — 
’twon’t be November till next Sunday; but 
maybe she had an emergency call — supplies 
run out or something; — anyhow she was there 
yesterday and it’s likely enough she’ll get up 
here to Little Bear to-day or to-morrow.” 

“ Seth Pennypacker’s in kind of a fix,” re- 
marked Nick Thimble. He hasn’t got rheu- 
matic fever, any more’n I have, but he’s too 
helpless to be alone there with the light : — and 
with all the complaint there’s been — And 
Horatio has gone away — ” 

Horatio had gone; the Mermaid’s smoke 
was a trail that extended almost out of the har- 
bor. 

Dan Scatterby, privately, behind the lobster 
factory, turned a somersault to express the joy 
of the victor. Surely, now, Pennypackers had 
lost the light and Scatterbys would have it! 

But even as Dan came upright he saw, on the 
wharf, the young man who had rescued him 
from drowning. The yacht’s tender must have 


Kept the Light 


127 


brought him over, while Dan was lurking out 
of sight of Horatio. He was all in white 
clothes, like the cook and steward, and some of 
the other fellows on board the yacht; — pretty 
queer business for this time of year, thought 
Dan. 

He thought he knew something about the 
doings of rich people, at least in the summer 
and early fall, but he couldn’t make out what 
this fellow was! 

He caught Dan’s eye and called out to him 
gayly that he looked drier than when he saw 
him last. 

Dan felt that he ought to look grateful; but 
he did look cross-eyed and fierce; — the queer 
young man was getting into the Bear Island 
rowboat, with Jane and the twins! 

Perhaps he was going to stay and pretend he 
belonged there, when the Inspector got along ! 

Dan felt a sudden, strong desire to go over 
to the light, now that Horatio was away. 

He called to Doxy, as the young man took 


128 How the Pennypackers 

the oars from Jane and pulled out with strong, 
even strokes. 

“ I’ve got your doll’s talker, all mended, in 
my pocket! I’ll come over and put it in, if you 
say so! And I’ll make her walk same as she 
used to ! ” 

Jane shook her head, severely, frowningly 
at him, but Doxy, who couldn’t help having the 
feelings of a mother, called out eagerly: 

“ Oh, yes, come over and mend Pepina ! 
You used to be a good boy, Danny Scatterby! ” 

Dan grew red to the very roots of his reddish 
hair — all the Scatterbys had a hint of red in 
their hair. He couldn’t think when it could 
have been that he was a good boy; he doubted 
whether anybody but Doxy Pennypacker had 
ever noticed it; he made up his mind that he 
would really mend Doxy Pennypacker’s doll, if 
it was a possible thing ! 

I think, myself, that it was at that very 
moment that Dan Pennypacker began to be a 
better boy ! — although it must be owned that 


Kept the Light 129 

the effects didn’t begin to show until some time 
after ! 

By this time everyone on the wharf had 
heard that the Inspector was on his way. There 
was a general hope that things would be found 
in satisfactory condition at the lighthouse. 

Even the signers of the petition began to look 
at each other doubtfully. 

“ It would come pretty hard on Seth Penny- 
packer to get turned out, this time of year! ” 
said Nick Thimble to Cap’n Hiram Scatterby. 

Cap’n Scatterby mopped his forehead with 
his big red handkerchief, although the day was 
cool. 

“ I don’t know, Link, as we ought to have 
sent that letter! Folks seem to be thinking 
’twas kind of mean! I don’t expect the In- 
spector has got it anyhow, do you? He must 
have started out before ’twas sent!” The 
Cap’n said this privately, in his brother’s ear. 

u He’s got it fast enough, somewhere along 
the route,” said Link. 


130 How the Pennypackers 

But Link didn’t seem to be very much pleased 
that the Inspector would have received the let- 
ter; he made hasty preparations and went off 
for a day’s fishing in the Pemetic, just as if the 
Inspection Boat were not on the way! 

The truth was Link didn’t like the way peo- 
ple looked at him; they looked as if they didn’t 
believe him! 

In fact no one had thought of disbelieving 
him, except Horatio, who had looked out and 
seen, or thought he had, that there was no ves- 
sel off Cottle’s Island. 

Link was really feeling that most wholesome 
thing that gets hold, some time or other, of al- 
most every boy and girl — shame. 

But he had not reached the very best stage 
of it yet, for he still thought that it would be 
the worst of anything to be found out. 

“ Thank fortune,” he said to himself, “ no- 
body can say the Pemetic wasn’t off Cottle’s 
Island that night when the light was dark and 
nobody’s likely to find out where she was! If 


Kept the Light 131 

the Inspector asks any questions — well, he isn’t 
going to make much by asking them of me! 
The light was dark, anyhow — nobody can 
make out that Scatterbys were mean for saying 
that!” 

So Link went off fishing, feeling pretty sure 
of not being found out, while the Mermaid was 
speeding out of the Bay, bound not to turn back 
until she had found out where the Pemetic 
really was that night when Horatio knew that 
she wasn’t anchored off Cottle’s Island, in the 
dangerous darkness. 


CHAPTER XII 


DAN GETS OVER TO THE LIGHT. JANE HAS 
HOUSEKEEPING TROUBLES. APRONS 
AND MOPS 

HILE Dan Scatterby was standing on 



* ▼ the wharf, trying to think how he should 
get over to Little Bear, to find out what that 
young man from the yacht was there for, who 
should come along in a rowboat, but Liberty 
Trull. Mama Pennypacker’s mother, old 
Grandma Gilkey, who lived at the Sea Wall, 
was very ill, and Liberty had been sent to Lit- 
tle Bear to bring her daughter over to her. 

Dan beckoned Liberty to come near and 
nimbly dropped himself into his boat. 

Liberty silently gave up one oar to his pas- 
senger — it was Hull Harbor manners to take 
anybody along with you who was going your 
way. And Liberty was silent, anyway; — 


132 


Kept the Light 


133 


some people said that his hair curled so tight 
that it made him tongue-tied; — but that seems 
doubtful, because his cousin Angenette had the 
same kind of hair and the liveliest of tongues. 

Dan, as he rowed, kept turning his head to 
peer out beyond the Ledge, for a glimpse of the 
Inspection Boat’s smoke. 

It would be pretty queer, at the lighthouse, 
with Mama Pennypacker away, when the In- 
spector came ! 

Of course Mama Pennypacker didn’t keep 
the light, but she kept things spick-and-span 
about the house, as Uncle Sam expected 
everything to be kept; — it was said that In- 
spector Littlefield looked into the corners, like 
a woman, and wouldn’t believe the light was 
well kept if the house was not. 

Now, Mama Pennypacker might be ever so 
nice a housekeeper, and yet with Papa Penny- 
packer so ill and Little She still having a bout 
with her teeth, she might have “ let things go.” 
— Dan knew how it was at his house ! 


134 How the Pennypackers 

He wondered whether Liberty had heard that 
the Inspection Boat was coming, and would tell 
her; — she would have to go when her mother 
had sent for her, anyway! 

Nobody could blame him for not telling her, 
— not even his sister Lida, who was such 
friends with the Pennypackers — for she had 
got to go, anyway ! 

That fellow from the yacht was probably 
going to stay; he looked as if he thought he was 
“ all hands and the cook ” ; — made him think 
of a verse Lida had spoken at the Junior Club: 

“ For I am the cook, and the captain bold, 

And the mate of the Nancy brig; 

And the bo’sn tight, and the midshipmite, 

And the crew of the captain’s gig!” 

But a fellow might think he was all that 
and yet not know how to keep a light ! 

The Inspector would soon give him his walk- 
ing ticket! 

As for himself he had an excuse for going 


Kept the Light 


135 


over and he expected to find out all he wanted 
to know; he had that doll’s “talker” in his 
pocket, and when Doxy had tears in her eyes he 
knew that every Pennypacker — even Jane! — 
would give in! 

Liberty took jaw-breakers (very hard and 
dark candy), two for a penny, from his pocket, 
and proffered one to Dan — Liberty’s heart was 
more open than his mouth — and, while they 
rested upon their oars and refreshed themselves, 
Dan’s sharp eyes descried a puff of smoke, far 
off against the horizon — so far off that it 
might be the St. John’s steamer, a very little 
out of her course. 

He hoped that Liberty would think it was 
the St. John’s steamer; — of no use for him to 
carry to Little Bear the news' that the Inspec- 
tion Boat was coming! But Liberty wasn’t 
looking, anyway; his “job” and the jaw- 
breaker filled all his mind. 

When they landed Liberty went directly up 
to the house door, as became a person who had 


136 How the Pennypackers 

proper and urgent business, while Dan went out 
behind the woodshed, where he could keep one 
eye on the rapidly advancing smoke, and watch 
for Doxy with the other, that he might have 
an excuse for staying; — Jane had an abrupt 
way of saying good-by, sometimes, that was very 
unpleasant. 

He peered around the corner of the shed and 
saw Mama Pennypacker, her plump and rosy 
face looking pale and disturbed as she hurried 
off with Liberty. Little She cried after her 
mother on the doorstep and Jane comforted 
her. 

Nobody at the lighthouse except Jane and the 
smaller ones when the Inspector arrived — un- 
less you counted that stuck-up young man from 
the yacht, who, of course, knew nothing about 
a light! 

On came the Inspection Boat — a trimly-built 
black steamer with yellow lines — she was 
called the Coreopsis, after Uncle Sam’s fashion 
of giving flower-names to his business boats — 


Kept the Light 


137 


closely followed by the tender, also a steamer, 
which could bring the supplies up to the land- 
ing. 

The Inspection Boat was out of Jane’s sight 
as she stood on the doorstep but when she blew 
her whistle — so shrill a whistle that from all 
the mountains that stood guard around Hull 
Harbor there came an echo — then Jane 
jumped. 

She picked up wailing Little She — who was 
too heavy for her to carry — and ran around 
the front of the house, until she could see the 
whistling steamer. 

“ Oh, my soul and body! ” was what Dan 
heard her say. 

Jane was apt to be overcome, at just the first 
minute; when she “ buckled to business,” as Ho- 
ratio said, you could count upon Jane! 

The young man from the yacht came running 
out; he had evidently been up in his room chang- 
ing his clothes — just like a visitor! Instead 
of the queer white clothes, he wore a blue flan- 


138 How the Pennypackers 

nel sailor-like suit — but it was Dan’s opinion 
that he didn’t look in the least like a sailor. 

“ Everything is all right,” he said to Jane — 
with a slight foreign accent. 

“ Your brother keeps the lamp beauti- 
fully.” 

“ I never thought of being afraid about the 
tower,” said Jane, and she said it proudly, 
with her head well up, — Pennypackers wouldn’t 
keep the light unless they could keep it safely 
and well, was what the high head meant. 

“ But — but you don’t know Captain Little- 
field!” stammered Jane. “He — he just 
makes himself at home — and — and sees 
everything! And Little She has been so cross 
I haven’t done the chambers ! ” 

The young man looked as if he understood 
perfectly how serious it was and just how Jane 
felt. 

“ I’ll take a look into the tower — just to be 
sure,” he said. “ Then you give me an 
apron and I’ll help you! ” 


Kept the Light 139 

Dan pushed himself forward as the young 
man hurried off to the tower. 

“You — you give me an apron, too! I’m 
awful handy! ” he said. 

He wished to stay and see what was going 
on — that was one reason why he said it, of 
course; another reason was that it didn’t seem 
so pleasant to see Pennypackers get caught in 
that way as he had thought it would ! 

Jane looked so queer, and her lip trem- 
bled. 

Someway that made Dan remember all the 
times when Jane had been good to him ! — mo- 
lasses candy and corn-balls — and not telling 
the teacher of him — and inviting him to her 
party — 

Jane, on her side, certainly thought “ Scat- 
terbys ! ” and felt doubtful of Dan’s good in- 
tentions. But she needed all the help she could 
get — and to help always made Jonas a better 
boy! — it might have that effect on Dan. And 
even while these thoughts were racing through 


140 How the Pennypackers 

her mind she was tying an apron around Dan’s 
neck. 

At home Dan would not wear an apron; he 
felt it to be a “ girly ” thing; but we all for- 
get our small notions when great things are hap- 
pening. 

Jane’s hands were trembling when she tied 
the apron around his neck; Jane was of the kind 
that begin by being afraid and make themselves 
get over it — a very fine kind, by the way, be- 
cause self-control is just about the biggest thing 
in the world! 

And when Jane spoke her voice trembled, al- 
though what she said was only : “ I wonder 

where Jonas and Doxy are ! ” It was habit to 
find out whether the twins were presentable 
when company was coming. 

It was just at that moment that the young 
man opened the kitchen door and a sound of 
weeping and wailing was heard. He pushed 
the children into the room before him, both of 
them dripping molasses, as they walked. And 


Kept the Light 


I 4 I 

Doxy, the good twin, was far more thickly be- 
smeared than Jonas, the bad one; her hair, 
pinned into little bobs, was dripping with it, so 
that it ran down into her eyes. 

“ This isn’t the worst,” said the young man, 
hurriedly, but with an awful calmness; “ a large 
jug of molasses is smashed upon the tower 
stairs ! There is molasses from the tower-room 
to the lowest stair! ” 

“ Jonas said he could make my hair turl for- 
eber,” wailed Doxy. “ But the jug was so 
heaby that he poured out too much — and den 
— and den he dwopped it — ” 

There came a thin, shrill screech from their 
own Little Bear landing. It was the voice of 
the tender which brought the supplies and in 
which the Inspector came over. 

“ Show me where I can get a mop and a 
bucket of water! ” said Mr. Edward Picot. 

But Dan Scatterby seized the pail of water 
from the sink and the apron from his neck, for 
a mop, and was first upon the tower stairs. 


CHAPTER XIII 


LIDA SCATTERBY TO THE RESCUE. THE STICK- 
INESS OF THE TOWER. THE IN- 
SPECTOR COMES 

D AN had no time to wonder at himself, as 
he fell to work upon the light-tower stairs, 
with the mop — although he did feel a little 
like the old woman on the king’s highway, who 
cried out, “ Oh, lawk V mercy on me, this 
surely can’t be I ! ” 

He hadn’t come over to help Pennypackers 
out of a scrape that might lose them the light! 
He had hoped they would lose it, so that his 
father might get it! And — now see what he 
was doing! 

I think it must have been because his better 
impulses had got the upper hand — and they 
wouldn’t have, if they hadn’t been the stronger 
ones ! 


142 


Kept the Light 143 

“ This needs a scrubbing brush ! Get one ! ” 
called the yacht young man. 

He had passed Dan upon the stairs and taken 
the tower room for his share of the cleaning. 

“ He thinks he’s some! ” Dan muttered to 
himself, grumbingly; but he went for the brush. 

Jane was flying about, setting the living-room 
to rights. She had taken what she described as 
the first coat of molasses off the twins and sent 
them out, with strict charges to keep away from 
the path and the landing. 

Little She, worsted by the Next Tooth and 
all uncuddled, was weeping softly, in a way 
that tore Jane’s heart. 

Captain Littlefield seemed to be lingering at 
the landing, to give directions to the mate about 
the unloading of the supplies from the tender. 

Dan would have liked to see the unloading — 
but he went stoutly back to the tower, with the 
scrubbing brush. 

Dan never had been the kind to leave a job 
after he had undertaken it! This was the 


144 How the Pennypackers 

kind of a time that brought out Dan’s virtues ! 

Jane felt very grateful to him, even while she 
admitted to herself that she “ didn’t quite know 
what to make of him.” 

She didn’t know what she should have done 
if he had not been there; Mr. Picot could not 
have repaired the mischief alone, in time. 

It was a terrible thing to have happened! 
No such thing had ever happened before, in all 
the fifteen years that Seth Pennypacker had kept 
the light. 

The twins were never allowed to go into the 
tower alone; bad little Jonas had worked upon 
Doxy’s vanity, which was, alas ! her besetting 
sin, and induced her to go there — where there 
was privacy, since Horatio had cleaned the lamp 
and gone away — and let him stick her hair 
into curls and make her beautiful “ foreber.” 

Just for the sake of being made pretty Doxy, 
the good twin, had fallen into this dreadful mis- 
chief ! 

Jane heard her father stirring, in his room, 


Kept the Light 


H5 


off the kitchen. He had been sleeping soundly, 
after a sleepless night, but the whistle of the 
Inspection Boat’s tender had awakened him. 
He looked startled and inquiring. “ The Cap’n 
has got along, hasn’t he?” he said, as he 
opened his bedroom door. “ Do you suppose 
there’s been any complaint that made him come 
ahead of time? There’s no fear but the light 
is all ship-shape — you can trust Horatio for 
that ! There’s no time when I’m afraid to have 
anybody see that tower! But I don’t see why 
he’s come ahead of time! ” 

“ He’s come up from ‘ the Light,’ ” said Jane. 
“ Perhaps something was needed there.” 

“ You slick me up, a little, Jane — get me a 
collar and brush me up ! Where’s your 
mother? — well, it’s pretty bad — pretty bad 
that she’s gone! She always got the Cap’n a 
bite; he gets sick of victuals aboard ship — ” 
u That’s what I want to do! ” said Jane ea- 
gerly. “ There are clams — Horatio dug them 
last night and they’re in Indian meal — they’re 


146 How the Pennypackers 

fine, big ones, and the Cap’n likes them steamed ! 
— and it takes only a very few minutes, you 
know ! ” 

What Jane was thinking was that it would 
take much more than a few minutes to clean all 
the molasses stickiness from the tower room and 
stairs; — if she could only detain the Inspector 
until it was done! 

A flood of sticky molasses in the tower room 
itself ! — close to the precious lamp ! — it would 
be as bad, to the Inspector’s mind, as the dark- 
ness of the light, which, as Link Scatterby testi- 
fied, had almost wrecked his vessel ! 

“ If you’ll only brush yourself, as well as you 
can, Papa dear! — oh, you precious Little She, 
sister will take you just as soon as she can — ” 

Jane ran to the woodshed for the clams; — 
there was a step at the door, and her heart 
thumped in her ears — the Inspector, of course ! 
she thought. Oh, what a relief when Lida 
Scatterby’s eager, jolly, friendly face looked in 
at her! 


Kept the Light 


H7 


Every picnic at Hull Harbor depended upon 
Lida, every club supper, and every surprise 
party — although her hair was not yet done up ! 

“ I was going over to the Point, to see Pedy 
— and I saw your mother go away — and then 
I saw the Inspection Boat — and — and — ” 
stammered Lida. 

Then the two girls looked in each other’s 
faces and remembered that Pennypackers and 
Scatterbys were no longer friends — at least 
Lida remembered it and feared that Jane would 
not be glad to see her. 

Jane thought of it only just enough to half 
wonder and be wholly thankful that Lida had 
come ! 

Lida ! — why, she could do half a dozen 
things at once — as you have to learn to do to 
be a good housekeeper. 

And in just about a minute — for Jane’s 
tongue could run ! — Lida understood all the 
demands of the situation. 

The first thing she did was to pull off the lit- 


1 48 How the Pennypackers 

tie worsted shawl she wore under her summer 
jacket and deftly tie it into a doll. Little She 
dried her tears to watch the deed and clutched 
the fascinating thing with an April smile when 
it had surely turned from a shawl into a doll; 
the Next Tooth knew itself beaten and allowed 
Little She to go to sleep, upon the lounge, the 
treasure hugged to her heart. 

Jane hurried to help her father while Lida 
put on the clams — a blazing hot fire and not 
a drop of water in the great kettle, because there 
was water enough in the clam shells; there was 
no Hull Harbor girl, whether she had her hair 
done up or not, but could have told you that ! 

Just as Jane finished helping her father to 
“ slick up ” the two workers appeared from the 
tower; the young man ordered the outer door 
of the tower left open until the Inspector came 
in sight. 

Dan offered to keep watch; — he and the 
young man had been making friends, and Dan 
had not once looked cross-eyed. 


Kept the Light 149 

“ It’s as clean as a whistle and now we want 
it as dry as a bone,” said Dan, and he said the 
we quite proudly. This young man was evi- 
dently one who naturally made people like him. 
Jane felt quite at home with him, because his 
half-sister was Mademoiselle Picot, Rosemary 
Bruce’s governess, who had actually been there 
at the lighthouse, and taught them a little 
French and a good deal of dancing. 

But Jane thought it was queer — and she 
knew that not even Horatio understood how 
Phonse’s tutor happened to know so much about 
a lighthouse ! 

The Inspector was coming up the path; Dan 
importantly closed the tower door — it does 
not look well for light-tower doors to be stand- 
ing open. 

Papa Pennypacker tried to hobble to the door 
and was not able; he sat down upon the foot 
of the lounge where Little She was lying with 
her shawl-doll and felt that all was lost. 

For fourteen years he had met the Inspector 


150 How the Pennypackers 

at the landing; now load after load of supplies 
was coming up to the storehouse, behind the 
woodshed, and he could not look after them; he 
was sitting there helpless! 

That young man, Phonse Bruce’s tutor, was 
at the door to meet the Inspector if he only had 
not let Horatio go away! 

Horatio might be young, but the Inspector 
must know that it was in the Pennypacker blood 
to keep a light! 

It was indeed Mr. Edward Picot who met 
the Inspector at the door and explained that 
Mr. Pennypacker had rheumatism — and Ho- 
ratio was away. 

“ Horatio! ” echoed the Inspector; — and it 
sounded — to Jane at least — as if he meant 
that Horatio was only a boy, and didn’t count, 
anyway. 

Captain Littlefield was a big, florid man, who 
looked as if he might particularly like steamed 
clams; but he had keen eyes and a firm mouth 
that looked as if he meant to have things just 



It was indeed Mr. Edward Picot who met the Inspector at 

the door. 



Kept the Light 


151 

right about all the lighthouses that he inspected. 

Edward Picot said modestly that he was the 
assistant, for a day or two, in Horatio’s ab- 
sence. 

“The assistant!” echoed Captain Little- 
field. And that sounded, to everyone who 
heard him, as if Uncle Sam had no assistants in 
that lighthouse that he, the Inspector, hadn’t ap- 
pointed ! 

Jane’s face grew red and Dan Scatterby 
looked fiercely at his nose; — it was queer, but, 
since he had scrubbed the molasses off those 
tower stairs, Dan felt as if he were bound to 
stand up for Scatterbys! 

Edward stepped near to the Inspector and 
said a few words to him in so low a tone that 
no one else could hear them. 

The words had a very astonishing effect! 

The grizzled old captain took off his hat, 
and held out his hand to the young man, as if 
he felt honored to make his acquaintance, and 
they went into the house together. 


152 How the Pennypackers 

“ He thinks he’s some! ” repeated Dan to 
himself, rather wonderingly than scornfully, 
this time — “ and I rather guess he is! ” 


CHAPTER XIV 


TRYING TIMES AT THE LIGHT. DAN DOESN’T 
KNOW WHAT TO MAKE OF HIMSELF. 

WILL THE PENNYPACKERS 
KEEP THE LIGHT? 

U T TE can’t be any great gun, for he isn’t 
more than twenty! ” Dan continued, to 
himself. “ But to see the Cap’n dowse his 
peak! ” (To dowse one’s peak, meant, in the 
language of the Hull Harbor old sailors, to 
suddenly drop a proud manner.) “ I’d give 
something to know just who he is ! B’longs to 
the navy, most likely ! — they’re the biggest 
swells.” 

“ Sorry to see you in this condition, Penny- 
packer,” said the Cap’n. “ Rheumatism is apt 
to grip us sea-dogs, sooner or later; — it’s had 
hold of me, before now! How’s your wife? 
Away, to-day? — ah — h ! ” 


i53 


154 How the Pennypackers 

There was a slight frown upon the Cap- 
tain’s brow and his “ah — h ! ” sounded to Jane 
exactly as if he were saying: “ Nobody taking 
care of Little Bear light except a helpless man 
and a lot of children — and a strange young 
man, who has no business here! ” 

“ I want just a word with this young man,” 
added the Captain, and he went into the living- 
room with Edward Picot and shut the door be- 
hind him! 

Could he mean to appoint Picot the keeper 
of the light? wondered Papa Pennypacker. 
They had been appointing younger and younger 
men all along the coast ! 

Jane’s face was so red you would scarcely 
have known that she had a freckle; — and it 
was not all the heat of the stove. 

It was a relief to have Lida as brisk as a bee 
and behaving as if nothing were the matter. 

The Cap’n had not even seemed conscious of 
the delicious sea-tang of the steaming clams, 
which was very unlike him ! 


Kept the Light 


155 


“ But then he probably didn’t smell the mo- 
lasses, either! ” Lida said, consolingly, when 
Jane spoke of it. 

“ Let Dan make the sauce for the clams,” 
she added. “ He has a knack; he makes it at 
every clam-bake, you know.” 

While Dan melted the butter at the stove, 
and later, when he added vinegar, drop by drop, 
working in the pantry, by a window that looked 
out to sea, he kept thinking how queer things 
were ! 

Instead of hoping that his father would get 
the lighthouse away from the Pennypackers he 
and Lida were trying to* help them to keep it! 

And it wasn’t because the Pennypackers had 
done anything, any great thing for them — as 
Dick saved his enemy’s life, in “ Coals of Fire,” 
his Sunday-school book — but only because they 
had a chance to help the Pennypackers ! — that 
seemed to make all the old neighborliness crop 
up ! 

And he hadn’t taken to that yacht fellow at 


156 How the Pennypackers 

all because he saved him from drowning, but 
he was so sociable when they scrubbed up the 
molasses together that now he quite liked him ! 

Life wasn’t like what you read about, mostly, 
in books nor what you thought it was going to 
be — but here Dan found himself getting so 
deep into things hard to understand that he 
looked cross-eyed at the clam sauce and was 
sure of only one thing — that he hoped the 
Captain hadn’t that petition in his pocket! 

He wished he hadn’t told that story about 
the rheumatic fever. He wished that his Uncle 
Link hadn’t told that story about the Pemetic; 
— it might be true ! — but the ease with which 
he had told his whopper made him feel that 
such things might run in the family ! 

He could see the men from the tender still 
bringing things up to the storehouse, and Doxy 
and Jonas had ventured near enough to look 
on. 

Doxy’s eyes were still red-rimmed and her 
small, smeary face was pale; Jonas was quite 


Kept the Light 157 

cheerful — even gay; he was, alas! — so used 
to being bad! 

Doxy’s small soul was bowed down with the 
thought that instead of keeping Jonas out of 
mischief, which was her mission in life, she had 
fallen into it along with him. 

She might even be spanked, that awful oper- 
ation to make people good to which Jonas was 
so accustomed, but which had never fallen to 
her lot! 

Dan’s new benevolence extended even to 
Doxy. 

He opened the window and called: 

“ Don’t you care, Doxy; — I’ve seen worse 
people than you ! ” 

This was not comforting to the good twin; it 
only made her mouth quiver. 

“ I’ll make your doll just as good as new — 
only give me time ! ” declared Dan. 

Doxy looked wistfully up at him; but her 
face did not brighten; faith in Dan Scatterby 
was dead. 


1 58 How the Pennypackers 


A great, choking sob tore its way from her 
throat. 

“ I want Jane and my dinner! ” she said — 
just as in a nightmare one longs to have things 
“ come natural.” 

“ You’ll come in to the second table — with 
batter cakes — and everything! And see 
here!” — Dan seized a loaf of cake which 
Jane had placed, ready for cutting, upon 
the pantry shelf and cut two thick slices from 
it, and held them out of the window. 

As Doxy’s small, uneven teeth showed them- 
selves in a comforted grin Dan rushed into 
the kitchen with his sauce. 

But there was no hurry; Captain Littlefield 
and young Picot were still closeted together. 
And Jane and Lida feared that the clams would 
be cold. But the Captain was his old, hearty 
self when, at length, they came out. And he 
did ample justice to the clams, served in a milk 
pan — it may as well be told ! — and with the 
table set in the kitchen. 


Kept the Light 159 

But it was a big, airy kitchen and as clean as 
clean could be. 

Edward Picot sat down with the Captain, and 
so did Papa Pennypacker but he could not eat. 
The girls waited upon the table — Jane feel- 
ing, all the time, as if she could hear the rustling 
of that dreadful letter, with the petition, in the 
Captain’s pocket! 

Captain Littlefield went up to inspect the 
tower and the light, as soon as the meal was 
over. Edward Picot went with him, always 
talking glibly, with his queer, little French ac- 
cent. 

Papa Pennypacker stood at the foot of the 
stairs; he could not even hobble up! 

It seemed to him that he was no longer the 
keeper of the Little Bear Light. Jane said to 
herself that he looked just as he had done 
the night of the frightful storm when they 
had expected that the house would be 
torn from the iron staples that held it to the 
rock! 


i6o How the Pennypackers 

He had held his head up firmly then, al- 
though his face was white. 

The Captain found no fault when he came 
down; he seemed to have found everything sat- 
isfactory. 

“ I shall be here for a day or two,” he said 
when he went away; “ and I’ll be over again. 
I want to have a talk with you.” That was to 
Papa Pennypacker, — who knew nothing about 
the petition and yet seemed to know what was 
coming ! — thought Jane. 

But the second table was gay, in spite of the 
fear. 

Jane absently washed the rest of the mo- 
lasses off the twins’ faces, forgetting to scold 
them. 

Dan had, for some time, felt a sense of emp- 
tiness, beneath Jane’s apron, tied about his neck, 
which not even the sense of good deeds had 
been able to allay. Now that his time had 
come he felt a right to be jovial. 

Young Picot sat down again^ for the sake of 


Kept the Light 161 

the good company, he said, and finished the di- 
minished loaf of cake. 

Papa Pennypacker hobbled out to take a look 
at the supplies. 

Little She slept through everything, com- 
forted by the shawl-doll and unconscious of her 
foe the Next Tooth. 

Jane tried to be jolly — you must, when you 
have company, you know! 

She tried to think that Phonse in sending his 
tutor over must surely have meant to help them 
— in spite of the mystery about that young 
man. 

Phonse said that was what he was rich for — 
to help his friends ! 

But Phonse was not so rich or so powerful 
as Uncle Sam, who must have his lighthouses 
well kept for the sake of his people who go 
down to the sea in ships. 

Lida went off without her shawl, because she 
would not disturb Little She. 

Dan declared, shamefacedly, at parting, that 


1 62 How the Penny packers 

he was coming over to — honest Injun ! — make 
Doxy’s doll as good as new. 

Jane went out to the cliff, after the children 
were in bed, and Edward Picot had lighted the 
lamp, and was on the watch. 

The Coreopsis lay out in the stream, her 
lights beginning to gleam through the twilight. 

Mama Pennypacker did not come. 

Jane feared that Grandma was worse; even 
that Mama might not come home until — until 
perhaps there was no home to come to! Until 
someone else was keeper of Little Bear light! 


CHAPTER XV 


HUNTING FOR A NEEDLE IN A HAYSTACK. 

MIND YOUR MANNERS. THE CROW 
HELPS ALL HE CAN 

TT 7HILE they were having this exciting time 
* * at Little Bear lighthouse, the Mermaid 
was steaming gayly along, in the bright October 
sunshine and her party of boys — and a crow 
— (Jo was as much a boy as either of the 
others) was having as jolly a time as if jollity 
were all the business it had on hand. 

But not one of the party forgot, for a 
moment, that the object was to find the tracks 
of the Pemetic f when she came down from Bos- 
ton, and Link Scatterby, her owner, said that 
he was obliged to anchor outside the harbor, 
and was exposed to great danger, because of the 
darkness of the Little Bear light. 

If Horatio could trust his eyes there had 
163 


164 How the Pennypackers 

been no vessel off Cottle’s Island, that night! 
— but of course it was easy to say that Horatio 
could not trust his eyes in the glare of the great 
light. 

The plan was to hail every craft that they 
came near to and inquire if the Pemetic had 
been seen on the way home to Hull Harbor, the 
Tuesday before. 

Chris, the crow, heard it talked over until he 
got excited and cried out shrilly, when even a 
fisherman’s dory hove in sight, and before the 
yacht slackened speed: 

“ Seen the Pemetic f Where was she when 
you saw her? ” 

One old fisherman, from the French settle- 
ment on a little island, was scared at the bird’s 
sharp question, and protested, in broken Eng- 
lish, that he had never done any damage to the 
Pemetic . 

On a lumber-laden schooner the captain’s 
wife was hanging out her clothes and she an- 
swered Chris snappishly that she “ had enough 


Kept the Light 


165 

to do to mind her own business, without playing 
fool tricks; and she wished that other people 
had! ” 

“ We must keep him still — they think we’re 
making fun of them! ” said Phonse. Jo cov- 
ered Chris’ cage with a sailor’s cotton jacket. 
In that seclusion the crow muttered savagely: 

“ Link Scatterby lied — he lied ! ” 

Someone must have spoken very frankly of 
Link Scatterby in the crow’s hearing! And 
Christopher would not hesitate to say that any- 
where. 

Horatio almost wished that he hadn’t been 
quite so positive ! — or, at least, that he had ex- 
pressed himself more politely! 

Pedy might well say, as she did, that that 
crow was a real schoolmaster for language and 
manners ! When you heard him repeat your 
remarks you knew just how they sounded. 

When they saw the Aurelia Gott ahead of 
them they began to have hope of finding out 
something. The Aurelia was a Schooner Cliff 


1 66 How the Pennypackers 

vessel and her captain knew the Pemetic. 

But what they found out was that the Pe- 
metic had unloaded at the same wharf in Bos- 
ton with the Aurelia Gott\ and had left for 
home at just about the time when, with a fair 
wind — as there had been — she would reach 
Hull Harbor as Link had said she did. There 
wasn’t much satisfaction in that! 

A little screeching po’gy boat — Tom Jar- 
vis’, of Goose Cove — was hailed, and they 
were told that Link Scatterby was at home, now, 
for Tom Jarvis had seen him on the Hull Har- 
bor wharf; — they could easily find out by 
him ! 

The next thing was to stop at Manchester’s 
Landing — or as near to it as the yacht could 
go — and Phonse and Horatio went off, in the 
tender, to interview Solomon Manchester, who 
was storekeeper and post-office keeper and gen- 
eral manager of the place. 

Mr. Manchester was willing to answer ques- 
tions — after his concerning the yacht had all 


Kept the Light 167 

been answered; but he “ didn’t take much notice 
of vessels without they stopped to stock up with 
provisions, and he didn’t know as he knew the 
Pemetic by sight.” 

“ I didn’t think it would be so much like hunt- 
ing for a needle in a haystack to look for some- 
body that had seen the Pemetic come down 
from Boston — over the old beaten track, 
where so many ships come!” said Horatio, 
gloomily. “ You see it was several days ago, 
— and the vessels that Link ran across are 
somewhere else — ” said Phonse reflectively. 
“ And perhaps Link didn’t come home by the 
beaten track.” 

“He wouldn’t have gone off it — unless he 
had some special reason for doing that,” said 
Horatio. 

Jo got out his fiddle after that, and Phonse 
had the table set for luncheon. They might as 
well have a good time out of it, if the search 
was a failure, he said. 

(They met the Elizabeth Lynam, bound for 


1 68 How the Pennypackers 

Eden, after that, but she had come direct from 
Baltimore and, of course, she hadn’t met the 
P emetic.) 

Horatio said that he had never come along 
that way before without coming across every 
old coaster that belonged on the Bay. He 
thought it was pretty hard luck! 

Jo said you never could tell what was hard 
luck, in this world! — that was because some 
“ luck ” that had seemed very hard to Jo — 
such as being shipwrecked — had proved to be 
his very good fortune ! 

But neither the philosophy, nor the fiddle nor 
the luncheon consoled Horatio. 

In fact, there were so many fashionable 
French dishes served at that luncheon, and there 
was so much ceremony about the serving that 
neither Horatio nor Jo found it very appetiz- 
ing. 

Now, when Jane and Horatio had dined with 
Phonse and his sister Rosemary, at a great Lon- 
don hotel, Jane had enjoyed every bit of the 


Kept the Light 


169 


ceremony and the style! She knew she had it 
in her to be stylish, though she had been born 
on Little Bear Island! 

Horatio said, scornfully, that that was the 
way with a girl! 

He got very red in the face and didn’t know 
how to behave when the waiter stood at his el- 
bow with queer dishes and a look that made you 
think of the minister at home. And he thought 
you couldn’t be very handy with your fork if 
you had to have half a dozen to eat with ! 

As for the fine dishes at this luncheon on the 
yacht — it was some fun to try to find a French 
word that he knew among the names, but he 
thought that if one had ever tasted the plum 
duff that Miguel, the little Portuguese cook on 
board Jo’s vessel, knew how to make, he 
wouldn’t think much of this stuff! 

In Horatio’s opinion you had to be born rich 
or a girl to like such foolishness. 

Jo was feeling very much like Horatio but 
he was trying hard not to disgrace Pedy, who 


170 How the Pennypackers 

was like Jane and approved of such things! 

Pedy had warned him not to behave as if 
he were in the habit of sitting down to a table 
with all the eatables upon it and helping him- 
self; and Jo was trying his best, but the per- 
spiration came out upon his forehead with the 
effort, and he felt thankful enough that Pedy 
and he didn’t have to live that way! 

Phonse, who, when he was only Phonny Bee, 
had cooked his own fish and eaten it upon a 
table against the wall, in Grandfather Bee’s 
tumble-down cottage, simply seemed to think 
it didn’t matter. 

He had got used to the fashionable ways, 
since he had lived with his mother, but he liked, 
just as well as ever, to eat off the lighthouse 
kitchen table. 

You didn’t have to pretend you were stylish 
on Phonse’s account — he didn’t care ! — it 
was those waiters that made a fellow feel so 
queer and miserable. He could stand ship- 
wreck, — as Horatio had done — or having the 


Kept the Light 


171 

Hull Harbor minister and his wife come to sup- 
per, or speaking a piece, exhibition day, before 
all Hull Harbor and summer cottagers, too ! — 
he could remember that he had a back-bone and 
was going to be a man ! — but those waiters 
just simply made him feel like a jelly-fish! 

Perhaps it wasn’t a relief when Phonse, the 
only one calm enough to look out upon the 
water, exclaimed that they were abreast of Fawn 
Island, and the Fresh-Air Camp, that he had 
seen when he came down, was being broken up. 
He had gone over, then, in the tender and got 
acquainted at the Fresh-Air Camp ! — that was 
exactly like Phonse ! 

The camp had been kept there so late in 
the season for the benefit of two boys from a 
city hospital, whom the sea air had benefited 
but who were still too weak to be moved. Now 
they were being taken off. 

“ They’ve got to go over to Buck’s Harbor to 
take the Boston steamer that stops there, this 
afternoon, — and see! they are going in that 


172 How the Pennypackers 

clumsy old dory — and its three or four miles 
— it looks to me as if the Fresh-Air Fund had 
about given out! ” Phonse was very much ex- 
cited. 

He gave some hasty orders and the yacht, 
with one of her clearest whistles, steered 
straight for Fawn Island. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A FRESH-AIR CAMP. THE MERMAID LENDS A 
HAND. WHERE LINK SCATTERBY 
KEPT A WINTER SCHOOL 

“TIT HAT is he up to now ? ” — this inquiry 
* * came hoarsely from the crow’s muffled 
cage. Chris had been taking a nap and was 
aroused by the commotion as the Mermaid 
changed her course to go in shore. (Chris had 
a stock of sayings which he had heard and 
never forgot and to which he was constantly 
adding; he certainly showed astonishing 
brightness in selecting the right one for the 
occasion.) 

Phonse would have said that what he was 
“ up to ” was having some fun out of his yacht. 
The two invalid boys would have been taken 
across the Bay in the old dory, and she would 
have had to beat, because the wind wasn’t in her 


i73 


174 How the Pennypackers 

favor; and nobody could say how long it would 
take ! 

Phonse had the boys on board the Mermaid f 
in a space of time known to Hull Harbor as a 
“ jiffy,” with the nurse who was to go with 
them to Boston. One of them, who was in- 
clined to sea-sickness, was amusingly grateful. 

He said it had looked to him “ an awful 
stunt ” to get across that Bay; he had lain awake 
nights thinking of it. 

The vacation in the sea air had so helped 
one of them, who had been an elevator boy, 
that he expected to soon go back to work. 
Then he would be able to take care of the 
other, a newsboy, who roomed with him. 

There had been a dozen boys at the camp, 
which was a “settlement” charity; some had 
gone home cured, a few had been too delicate 
to stay so late in the season; these two were the 
only ones left. 

Delicacies from that unsatisfactory luncheon 
and a fresh supply of coffee did not come amiss 


Kept the Light 175 

to the new passengers. Chris, released from 
his seclusion, complimented them upon their ap- 
petites, and ordered Jo to get out his fiddle. 

When they had eaten their fill the passengers’ 
tongues were loosened; — no diffidence about 
these waifs and strays of humanity. 

They talked about the life of the slums and 
their business prospects like men of the world. 
In fact Horatio afterwards said that he had 
learned more of the world in that sail across 
the Bay with those boys than he had done in 
going to London ! 

Jo quietly removed the crow’s cage to another 
part of the deck; — he feared that Christopher 
might learn slang that Pedy would not like ! 

But there was, after all, no harm in the slang, 
— Phonse said it was “picturesque”; — his 
mother called it so, when it was the slum boys 
who used it — but she wouldn’t have thought it 
was “ picturesque ” for him to talk in that 
way! 

The nurse was a nice, fair, young woman, 


176 How the Pennypackers 

like cleanliness personified; you wouldn’t have 
thought that dirt had ever come near her white 
apron, nor slang near to her ears! And yet 
she lived in a slum settlement. 

She invited Horatio and Phonse to visit the 
settlement, when they parted at the Buck’s Har- 
bor wharf, and Phonse took down the boys’ 
names in his notebook, with the air of being 
fifty instead fifteen — or, at least not quite six- 
teen. 

Buck’s Harbor ! Horatio tried to think what 
he had heard about it, after the Boston steamer 
had carried their passengers away, and they 
were about to return to the yacht. It was an 
out-of-the-way place, from the Hull Harbor 
point of view — that is, Hull Harbor was not 
obliged to pass it, on the way to the great world 
— but stay! there was a way in which Buck’s 
Harbor was known to fame. 

“Don’t you remember? — Link Scatterby 
kept the winter school, up here, once ! • — two 
or three winters ago.” Jo said this as if it 


Kept the Light 177 

were not of much consequence — but it gave 
Horatio an idea ! 

“Yes — and I know he comes up here a 
lot! ” he said excitedly. 

What more likely than that the Mermaid 
should have gone a little out of her regular, 
route from Boston, to stop at Buck’s Harbor? 

Horatio turned back on the way to the 
yacht and went into the large store a little dis- 
tance from the wharf, in a building which 
seemed to contain most of the business of the 
little place. Phonse followed Horatio, and Jo, 
too, seemed to decide, after a moment that it 
might be worth the while to inquire if anyone 
at Buck’s Harbor had seen the Pemetic — al- 
though it had begun to seem to him only fit for 
one of the crow’s cacklings ! — what those slum 
boys would call “ a fool stunt ! ” Horatio 
walked up to the proprietor of the store — a 
tanned and grizzled man with a sailor’s gait, 
whom you called “ Captain ” as naturally as if 
his store were a ship. 


178 How the Pennypackers 

He would be sure to know all about the ves- 
sels that put into that harbor! “Good-day, 
Cap’n Hardy,” said Horatio — Solomon Hardy 
was the sign over the store door. u Do you 
happen to know whether the Pemetic put in 
here, on her way from Boston, last Monday or 
Tuesday? ” 

Cap’n Hardy stroked his stubbly chin reflect- 
ively. 

“ Le’s see — when was it, Luke ” — to a boy 
filling a jug with vinegar, at the back of the 
store — “that the Neptunes had their dance? 
That was the night that Link Scatterby stayed 
over here. Tuesday night ! — that was it. He 
got off about daylight the next morning — to 
catch a good fair wind. He must have got 
home to Hull Harbor in the course of the fore- 
noon.” 

They were getting all the information 
they wished for, just because Cap’n Hardy 
liked to see strangers and to talk ! — liked 
especially to see people from a yacht, be- 


Kept the Light 


179 


cause they might want to stock up a little. 

Youngsters! — but there must be men about 

— besides the sailor standing in the door. 
(He didn’t know Jo — who had generally been 
in too much of a hurry to get off his beaten 
track.) 

“ Link Scatterby stayed here over Tuesday 
night, did he?” said Phonse. 

“ Why, la ! yes, he often does put in here,” 
said Cap’n Hardy easily. “ Used to keep 
school here, and he’s been courting Lura Pet- 
tingill, ever since. 

“ She’s a terrible nice girl, Lura is, and I don’t 
know whether she’ll have him or not! — why? 

— what makes you ask?” The storekeeper 
had suddenly seen that his questioners were 
looking at each other in some excitement, and 
that the sailor at the door was listening as 
eagerly as the boys. 

“ There hasn’t anything happened to Link, 
has there? ” 

“ No — we only wanted to prove that he 


i8o How the Pennypackers 

wasn’t somewhere else last Tuesday night,” 
said Horatio. “ Will you just give us your 
statement in writing that he was here last Tues- 
day night and sailed for Hull Harbor early in 
the morning? ” 

The old storekeeper adjusted his glasses high 
up on his forehead and stared. 

“ That’s what’s called proving an alibi — 
a-l-i-b-i — it’s some foreign language that the 
lawyers use — I expect to make out they know 
more’n anybody else! If I’m going to do that 
I want to know first whether it’s going to help 
Link or hender him! ” 

“ He told a lie — ! ” began Horatio, hotly. 
Phonse had his hand on his arm, but it was of 
no use — Hull Harbor manners are hasty! 
u He said he was outside the Harbor all night 
Tuesday night, and couldn’t get in because Lit- 
tle Bear light was dark! ” 

“ Oho ! — Oho ! ” cried Cap’n Solomon 
Hardy, exactly like the ogre in Jack the Giant 
Killer. It sounded like “ now, I’ve got you ! ” 



11 He told a lie — ! ” began Horatio, hotly. “ He said he 
was outside the Harbor all night! ” 



Kept the Light 1 8 1 

And both Phonse and Jo looked as if they 
thought there had been no need of telling! 

“ The Little Bear light was dark that Tues- 
day night! — a thick and squally kind of a 
night! I heard of it clear’n up here! ’Twas 
dark till most ten o’clock! ” 

“We never said it wasn’t,” said Horatio 
calmly — though he was so pale that he looked 
very freckled indeed — “ we only say that no 
harm was done because there happened to be no 
ships outside.” 

“ And Link says he was outside trying to get 
in, does he? ” — the storekeeper chuckled, as if 
it were only a joke ! 

“ Off Cottle’s Island, with the Pemetic strain- 
ing at her anchor, all night — because after the 
lamp was lighted it was too thick to see it!” 
Horatio explained indignantly. 

Cap’n Hardy chuckled again. 

“ Lura Pettingill won’t have Link if he’s 
been lying! ” he said — just as if Link’s side 
of the affair were the only important one. 


182 How the Pennypackers 

“ Will you give us your affidavit that Link 
Scatterby was here last Tuesday night? ” asked 
Phonse, with dignity. 

(It is not really certain that Phonse, al- 
though he was generally pretty sensible, didn’t 
like to say “ affidavit,” to show that he knew 
as big a word as “ alibi.”) 

Solomon Hardy rubbed his stubbly chin — 
just as if his puzzled brains were located there, 
instead of in his head where they ought to be. 

“ What’s wrote is wrote,” he said, “ and Link 
is a friend of mine, as you might say, and 
he’s been considerable of a customer — off and 
on — ” 

“ I wouldn’t stand up for my friends or my 
customers when they told lies — to hurt other 
people ! ” cried Horatio. 

By which it will be seen that Horatio’s meth- 
ods were hardly business-like. 

“See here, who be you two youngsters?” 
demanded the storekeeper. “ It ain’t anyways 
common for boys like you to be around in a 


Kept the Light 183 

yacht-it, all by yourselves as you might say, 
as you appear to be! ” 

(They do say yacht-it, on that side of the 
Bay; only the very old seamen at Hull Harbor 
do; but it doesn’t really seem so very superior 
to say yot !) 

“ Did you ever know the Bees, at Hull Har- 
bor?” asked Phonse quickly. 

“ Well, I rather guess I did! ” exclaimed the 
storekeeper. “ I sailed my first voyage mate 
to Alphonso Bee — ” 

“ I was his adopted son; — then I found my 
own people — ” 

“You don’t say you’re that boy! — Land’s 
sake ! ’twas in the papers ! I guess there ain’t 
anybody ’round these parts that hasn’t heard 
that story ! — sounded to me like a story-book 
yarn when I first heard it. I rather guess some 
of it was pretty far-fetched — they told about 
a tiger licking the boy’s hand! It was a cir- 
cus tiger and some said the boy had been in a 
circus — but la ! when a boy that’s been adopted 


184 How the Pennypackers 


turns out to be great things there’s no end to 
the stories folks will make up about him ! ” 

“ It’s true about the tiger — it was my old 
Gungo — I think a lot of him,” said Phonse. 
“ He doesn’t work for his living, in a circus, 
any more. He’s in a Zoo and he has plenty of 
liberty and a good time.” 

“ Liberty and a good time ! — good land ! 
— I’m glad that Zoo ain’t round in this neigh- 
borhood!” exclaimed the storekeeper. 
“ There’s different tastes in this world — but I 
don’t want any tigers in mine ! I expect you’re 
putting your money into yacht-its now, and 
squandering it just as fast as you can ! ” 

He had no thought except for Phonse, now, 
which was exactly what that shrewd young per- 
son wished, for he thought it would seem to him 
that he was being asked to take sides directly 
against Link, if he knew that Horatio was one 
of the Pennypackers. 

Phonse now turned away, with an indifferent 


air. 


Kept the Light 185 

“ If Link Scatterby was here at the Nep- 
tune’s dance, last Tuesday night, of course there 
are plenty of people by whom we can prove 
it! ” he said. 

Horatio and Jo followed him to the door. 

“ Hold on ! ” called the storekeeper. 


CHAPTER XVII 


PHONSE TRADES WITH CAP’N HARDY'S OWN 
COIN. A QUEER “ AFFIDAVIT.” THE 
FUNNIEST THING PHONSE 
EVER HEARD OF 

H ORATIO “ held on ” ; it was going against 
his grain to go back to Hull Harbor with- 
out being able to prove where Link Scatterby 
had been on that Tuesday night when the 
tower was dark. 

It was one thing to say that he had been at 
the Neptune’s dance, at Buck’s Harbor and an- 
other thing to prove it ! They might get some 
people whom nobody knew to make a written 
statement, but that wouldn’t be like getting one 
from Cap’n Solomon Hardy, who was known 
to everybody! 

He thought Phonse was taking things a little 
too easily. 


186 


Kept the Light 


ib 7 


“ You see, Link Scatterby being an old cus- 
tomer, so — ” said the storekeeper. “ He 
never puts in here without provisioning 
some — ” 

Phonse turned back with a twinkle in his eye 
and cast a glance at Horatio’s anxious face. 

“ I see you have a fresh lot of canned goods,” 
he called to the storekeeper; — “ I’ll send my 
steward over from the yacht.” 

“A-a-hem!” coughed Cap’n Hardy; — “I 
expect maybe I was a little mite too particular 
about that writing — seeing, as you say, there’s 
a lot of other folks knowing to Link’s being 
here — and when your steward comes over I’ll 
have it wrote out that Link was here to the 
dance, sure enough — ” 

“ All right! ” said Phonse easily — and drew 
Horatio away, with an arm around his shoulder, 
to prevent him from showing any eagerness. 

“ You — you’ve learned a lot since you went 
away from Hull Harbor ! ” said Horatio, look- 
ing a little shame-faced. 


1 88 How the Pennypackers 

“ I like Hull Harbor ways better ! — 
straight from the shoulder! ” said Phonse. 

“ But when you come across a fellow like 
that you have to trade with him in his own 
coin! We’ve nailed Link Scatterby’s lie! — 
and it’s going to be a glorious moonlight night 
and we’ll steam out into the broad Atlantic a 
bit, and it won’t matter if we don’t go home till 
morning ! ” 

Jo kept laughing about Solomon Hardy and 
his business bump. 

“ Lura Pettingill won’t have Link if he’s 
been lying ! ” he quoted, and threw back his head 
and laughed — one of his great, hearty, sailor 
laughs. 

That was when they were again on the deck 
of the Mermaid and the steward had been sent 
to the store with orders to buy all that they 
could use from Solomon Hardy’s stock. 

Chris became excited while the interview with 
the storekeeper was talked over, and kept mut- 
tering to himself. 


Kept the Light 189 

They took no notice; Chris seemed to have 
nothing to do with this affair; but they were to 
find out, afterwards, that Chris thought he had! 

The steward returned with the tinned goods 
and this document from Captain Solomon 
Hardy: 

“ I run of an idea that I saw Link Scatterby up 
here to the Neptune’s dance, last Tuesday night. Of 
course it’s easy for folks to be mistaken, and I am some 
near-sighted; but I calculate that if you ask Link he’ll 
tell you he was here — for I never knew Link to tell a 
lie.” 

“ Solomon Hardy.” 

That gave Jo a chance to laugh again. He 
said Cap’n Hardy was like a cat that tries to 
keep its paw on one mouse while it catches 
another ! 

Buck’s Harbor people had always been fa- 
mous for knowing on which side their bread was 
buttered. 

“ It’s enough to show the Inspector that 
Link’s story was false,” said Phonse. “ Any- 


190 How the Pennypackers 

one can see just why he didn’t like to 
say it right out. And it will show every- 
one that signed that petition that they were 
fooled ! 

“ But if you want to stay here another day, 
Horatio, we can get every man Jack of the 
Neptunes — that hasn’t anything to sell! — to 
testify that Link was here ! ” 

But Horatio decided to be satisfied with 
Cap’n Hardy’s “ affidavit.” He thought that 
if the Inspector had received that letter he 
would be likely to get along, any day. It was 
almost time for him to come, anyway. They 
had found out just how the Pemetic came down 
from Boston and Link Scatterby would never 
dare to deny that he had gone out of his way, 
to Buck’s Harbor, to stay over for the Nep- 
tune’s dance. 

When the Mermaid steamed out of Buck’s 
Harbor, early the next morning, Phonse had a 
salute fired, and the flag was flung out over 
Cap’n Hardy’s store, in response, and there 


Kept the Light 


191 

was a great cheering and waving of handker- 
chiefs on shore. 

Jo said that Cap’n Hardy didn’t deserve any 
salute, but Phonse said it was “ all for the fun 
of it.” When two boys were managing a yacht, 
to suit themselves, it couldn’t be expected that 
they wouldn’t do some things “ just for the fun 
of it.” 

Cap’n Hardy was saying, at about that time, 
that it was the beatermost thing he ever saw for 
that young chap that used to be Phonny Bee to 
be owning a yacht that was fit for the President 
and taking it as easy as if it wasn’t anything but 
a lobster dory! 

He had a head-piece — that little feller had 
— that was one thing sure ! 

As for the other boy — some thought he was 
Seth Pennypacker’s son, that kept Little Bear 
light; if he was, Seth Pennypacker was pretty 
likely to go on keeping the light, if there was 
talk of his being turned out! — it was kind of 
an up-and-coming generation, this latest one! 


192 How the Pennypackers 

The old sailors ’long the Bay had got to hustle 
to keep up with it, yacht-its, and all! 

The- Mermaid put on all steam, after Ho- 
ratio had expressed that fear about the Inspec- 
tor. He was a careful man, this Inspector, 
and he would be likely to take a look at Little 
Bear light pretty soon after he had heard a 
complaint. 

Sure enough, before the Mermaid got around 
the Point, they saw the old Coreopsis , with her 
great tender, lying off Little Bear! 

“ That’s the first time he ever got around 
before he was due,” said Jo. 

Horatio’s freckles all looked very brown — 
which meant that he had turned pale — in spite 
of the comfort of Cap’n Solomon Hardy’s 
“ affidavit ” in his pocket. 

No one had been injured, no vessel in 
danger — as it had happened — but the Little 
Bear light tower had been dark. 

Horatio could not get over that! 

And Captain Littlefield, the Inspector, was 


Kept the Light 


193 


not just the man you would like to have look 
you in the eye and think you were to blame for 
it! 

Horatio began to think that he ought not to 
have been away when the Inspector arrived. 

“ Phonse, you’re sure that tutor of yours 
knows something about a lighthouse, are you? ” 
he asked anxiously. “ Yes, I do know I can 
trust you — ” (this was in answer to a ques- 
tion from Phonse which had a little heat in it) 
— “ but I do want to know who he is ! Would 
the Inspector think he knew enough to be left 
alone with the light?” 

Phonse laughed! 

Since he had been so awfully rich Phonse did 
seem to take some things lightly — just as he 
had taken Cap’n Solomon Hardy! That was 
the only change that the great wealth had made 
in him, so far as Horatio could see. 

But surely nobody would think he could take 
Uncle Sam lightly ! — nobody, that is, who had 
any sense ! 


194 How the Pennypackers 

“ Now, you just wait till I hear from my 
mother ! — and there’ll be a letter at the post- 
office, I’m pretty sure. Then you shall all 
know who Edward Picot is and whether it’s 
safe to trust him with Little Bear light! ” 

The Mermaid was going into the Harbor in 
pretty good style — steam well on ; Phonse was 
only a boy and he liked to do it! 

When Phonny Bee had been mackereling he 
brought his old dory into port in as good shape 
as he could and if he had had a poor catch he 
said but little about it! 

Phonse Bruce was only Phonny Bee, who had 
had a chance to give Aladdin’s Lamp a rub and 
he had the same little pride that he had before 
— as well as the same sturdy courage and the 
heart of gold ! 

I am not sure that there was much but sturdy 
courage in the pride of appearance and, any- 
way, small weaknesses don’t count when the 
heart of gold is there! 

There were a good many people on and 


Kept the Light 195 

around the wharf — more people than gener- 
ally gathered there at steamboat time, even in 
the height of the season — that was apt to be the 
case when the Inspector came, and never, 
within the memory of any Hull Harborite, had 
there been such excitement about his coming as 
now. 

Even the yacht was of minor interest, al- 
though the boys gathered around Phonse and 
Horatio, when they reached the wharf, and in- 
quired whether she had ever raced for a prize 
and doubted whether she could beat the Van- 
derbilt yacht that had been at Eden. Hull 
Harbor knew what was going on, you see, but 
in season and out of season were two different 
lives. 

Jo went into the store, which was also the 
postoffice, to see if he could get some mail to 
take home to Pedy, and had to push his way 
through a crowd. 

“ The letter that they wrote to the Inspector 
, — with a petition in it — has been following 


196 How the Pennypackers 

him around and it has just got here ! ” ex- 
plained Liberty Trull. “And the very ones 
that got it up and those that signed it, don’t 
want him to have it! — they’re trying to keep 
Tobias Clark from giving it to him! — and of 
course he’s got to give him his mail because he’s 
the postmaster! And they’re making a great 
row! ” 

Horatio looked over at the Coreopsis ; her 
tender was setting out for the wharf. 

He looked anxious; he felt for the “affi- 
davit ” in his pocket. But Phonse laughed. 

“ If that isn’t the very funniest thing I ever 
heard of! ” he said. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE INSPECTOR AND THE CROWD. LINK SCAT- 
TERBY TELLS THE TRUTH. A i( GREAT 
GUN” TO HELP AT THE LIGHT- 
HOUSE. PHONSE MAKES MORE 
PLANS. CHRIS SPEAKS 
FOR EVERYONE 

OUD and angry voices came from the 



^ store as Phonse and Horatio followed Jo 
into it. 

Link Scatterby stood on a box, a little apart 
from the throng, his arms folded across his 
chest, and his head thrown back. He looked 
like a statue of the American Sailor, on a high 
pedestal. Link didn’t seem to be saying much 
but he looked very scornful. 

It was Cap’n Hiram Scatterby’s voice that 
arose above all the others. “ You just give 
me back that letter, Tobias Clark!” he de- 


197 


198 How the Pennypackers 

manded. “ When a man has wrote a letter, 
feeling kind of worked up in his mind, and 
doing what he was sorry for, when he come to 
think of it, and — and saw what most other 
folks thought of it, why he has a right to say 
that that letter sha’n’t be given to the person 
it was wrote to ! ” 

“ As I understand it other people besides 
you signed their names to this letter — it’s a 
petition,” said Mr. Tobias Clark, in the thin, 
squeaky voice that was a very queer voice for a 
fat man to have. 

“ All them that signed iti want to take it 
back! ” cried Cap’n Scatterby. 

“ I wa’n’t thinking but what business was 
business, but folks are terrible down on me for 
wanting to get the light. And most of them 
that signed the petition live over to the Sea 
Wall and Grandma Gilkey she’s been pretty 
sick — Grandma Gilkey that has took care of 
everybody when they were sick or in trouble — 
and her daughter, Eudoxia Pennypacker, is the 


Kept the Light 


199 


same kind ! Folks think a sight of them ! And 
my wife is down sick because I did it — ” 

“ That letter has been clear’n down to Win- 
ter Harbor and back ! — I haven’t got any more 
right to touch it than nobody at all ! ” said the 
postmaster, excitedly. “ That letter is di- 
rected to Cap’n Littlefield, Inspector of Light- 
houses, and anybody else that opens it lays him- 
self liable to twenty years imprisonment! ” 
There was a murmur of voices all over the 
store. Chris, being carried home by Jo, al- 
ways liked to lift up his voice in a clamor: 

“Mean piece of business!” he shrieked, 
above every other sound. 

(Chris certainly had a wonderful knack at 
selecting the right thing to say from the re- 
marks which he heard around him.) 

“ I don’t want to open it ! I only want to 
chuck it into the fire ! ” said Cap’n Scatterby, 
in a voice that shook. “ And it’s my letter ! — 
and more’n once I’ve known folks to take back 
a letter after they’d dropped it into the mail! ” 


200 How the Pennypackers 

“ Not after it had been stamped and carried 
round two or three postoffices ! ” insisted the 
postmaster. 

Phonse caused a slight pause in the excite- 
ment by asking for his mail, in a great hurry. 

He eagerly tore open his one letter. 

“ There ! — now it’s all right, I’m sure ! ” 
he whispered eagerly to Horatio, as soon as he 
had read a few words. “ My mother is willing 
Edward Picot should stay! — and I may take 
your father with me on my Southern cruise — 
six weeks leave of absence ! — I’m going to ask 
the Inspector! He won’t refuse when he can 
have — oh, I’ll tell you who Edward Picot is, 
as soon as I get a chance ! ” 

Dan Scatterby was listening — Dan had ears 
that stood out from his head, like a ship with 
sails set wing-and-wing. 

“ I knew he was some great gun that time he 
yanked me out of the water ! ” he murmured. 

The shrill whistle of the Inspection Boat’s 
steam tender was heard at the wharf. 


Kept the Light 


201 


“ Cap’n Littlefield is talking to Arad Blinn 
about the repairs on the tender,” said Liberty 
Trull, rushing into the store. (Arad Blinn 
was a ship’s carpenter.) “ He’ll be in here in 
a minute or two ! ” 

“ Tobias Clark, will you give me that letter 
to the Inspector that I wrote with my own hand 
and have got a right to take back — and there 
ain’t a soul that signed it but what wants it 
back?” 

Cap’n Scatterby said this almost fiercely, yet 
his voice trembled and he wiped his forehead 
with a very big red handkerchief. 

The postmaster held the long, thick letter, 
addressed to Cap’n Littlefield, Inspector of 
Lighthouses, in his hand, and shook his head 
firmly. 

“ It’ll be the ruin of Pennypacker to have 
the Inspector get it — and of me, too!” 
groaned Cap’n Scatterby. 

“ You ought to have thought of that before, 
Hiram!” said the postmaster sternly. “I 


202 How the Pennypackers 

couldn’t give you the letter, anyhow. It’s a 
state’s-prison offense ! ” 

The crow’s cage stood on the counter close 
beside the postmaster. Chris could be as quick 
as a flash ! 

He thrust his head between the wires of his 
cage and seized the letter in his long, sharp 
beak ! 

Jo instantly seized it by one end; but Chris 
held on; his sharp beak tore through envelope 
and letter as Jo pulled. 

Cap’n Scatterby was at hand to grab the 
other end of the envelope — and Jo’s end, also, 
as they were separated by the crow’s beak and 
Jo’s pull. The astonished Christopher had 
only a beak full of torn paper, while Cap’n Scat- 
terby thrust the remains of the petition into the 
stove, upon the embers of the fire that had 
heated the stove in the late October morn- 
ing. 

The Cap’n mopped his forehead again, but 
now with a great sigh of relief. “ I don’t ex- 


Kept the Light 


203 


pect anybody will try to put the crow into state’s 
prison ! ” he chuckled. 

The blaze still showed in the stove door as 
the Inspector came in. 

“Any mail for me, Mr. Clark?” he asked. 

The postmaster’s face was red, anyway, so 
perhaps no one would have observed that it 
was redder than usual; and his high, squeaky 
voice was no higher and no squeakier than 
common as he answered: 

“ Not a thing for you, this morning, sir! ” 

“ I’ve got to be off in half an hour, now,” 
said the Inspector, looking at his watch. And 
then he looked about him at the throng of 
people. 

There had never been quite so many people 
gathered together before when he made his 
appearance. 

“ I understand that there has been a com- 
plaint that the Little Bear light was not lighted 
— one night last week — until nearly ten 
o’clock,” he said. 


204 How the Pennypackers 

Horatio’s heart beat like a trip-hammer in 
his ears! He and Phonse made their way 
around to the box upon which Link Scatterby 
was now sitting, somewhat hidden by the 
crowd. 

“ It is reported that Captain Lincoln Scat- 
terby’s vessel was in great danger outside the 
Harbor.” 

The Inspector had keen eyes beneath great, 
shaggy eyebrows; he was looking all around the 
store with them now. 

There was a dead silence. The crow saw 
his chance and screamed out: 

“ Lura Pettingill won’t have him if he lied! ” 

There was a titter all around the store. The 
Inspector, who took his responsibility seriously, 
looked bewildered and didn’t even smile. 

Link Scatterby sprang to his feet, looking 
startled and angry. 

“ Did you have a good time up at Buck’s 
Harbor, at the Neptune’s dance?” asked 
Phonse, easily, in a low tone. 



Horatio took Cap’n Solomon Hardy’s “ affidavit ” from his 
pocket. 





205 


Kept the Light 

Horatio took Cap’n Solomon Hardy’s “ af- 
fidavit ” from his pocket and held it, silently, 
before Link’s eyes. 

Under its sailor coat of sunburn Link’s face 
showed that it was pale. But he walked for- 
ward with a jaunty air. 

“ That was only kind of a joke,” he said. 
“ If I’d come right along there’s where I might 
have been, in the dark, so I thought I’d kind of 
scare them at the lighthouse ! ” 

“Too serious a thing to joke about!” said 
the Inspector. 

(“It’s a state’s-prison offense!” shrieked 
Chris, excited by the attention his former re- 
mark had excited.) 

“ There has never been a darkness of the 
Little Bear light before in the fifteen years that 
Mr. Seth Pennypacker has kept it. And that 
was caused by serious, unexpected illness. 
Pennypacker has needed an assistant for some 
time; he has one, now, and I hope will have 
for some time, of very unusual ability and learn- 


206 How the Pennypackers 

ing. He is familiar with most European light- 
houses — a hydrographer and member of the 
Hydrographical Society! — ” 

Whew! — what words, for Hull Harbor! 
No one dared to breathe! Even the crow was 
silent and subdued: — Chris almost always had 
the sense to know what was entirely beyond 
him ! 

If there was all that for an assistant over 
there it was no wonder that Cap’n Scatterby 
was ashamed of trying to get the light! 

“ He has got two or three medals from that 
society with the big name,” said Phonse, aside 
to Horatio. “ He was only going to tutor me, 
for a while, to be with his sister. It will be 
a lark for him to stay here a while, he says; 
and we’ll get your father leave of absence long 
enough to cure him ! And I want to take him 
South on the yacht. And you can come along 
to the launching of Jo’s vessel, in New York! ” 
But Horatio shook his head firmly at that. 
Jo’s ship was one that Phonse had had built 


Kept the Light 


207 


for him when his was wrecked, and it would 
soon, now, be ready to be launched; but Ho- 
ratio was going to stay at home and help to 
keep Little Bear light : — he was going to make 
up, somehow, for letting that light be dark! 

Phonse and Horatio were about to put off, 
in the Mermaid’s tender, for Little Bear. 

Lida Scatterby came running to beg to be 
carried over, because she wanted to help Jane; 
— Mama Pennypacker had not yet gone home, 
although Grandma Gilkey was better. 

Dan Scatterby said he must go, because the 
talker of Doxy’s doll was now all ready to put 
in — you could hear it talk, in his pocket, if 
you cared to listen ! 

What he really wanted, now, was to make 
that doll “ come right ” ; he said to himself that 
if he couldn’t turn into a rich feller or be a great 
gun, he would make a good thing of it to be 
Dan Scatterby! 

Jo, with Chris, was getting into his own row- 
boat as Link Scatterby set out for the Pemetic, 


2 o 8 How the Pennypackers 

lying at her moorings. The crow caught sight 
of Link and called out hoarsely: 

“ Lura Pettingill won’t have him if he 
lied! ” 

There was a chorus of laughter from the 
wharf; but Link, red-faced, only rowed a little 
faster. 

“ Good-by — come over to the Point before 
you go, Phonse! ” called Jo, as he pushed off in 
his own rowboat. 

“ Good-by — give my love to everybody!” 
screamed the crow. “ Glad the Pennypackers 
kept the light ! ” 


THE END 









AUG 13 1812 





